The World's First Affordable Mid Engine Car - Worthy Or Best Forgotten? Fiat X1/9

The 124 was longitudinal front-engined, rear-wheel drive! The 128 had a transverse-mounted engine and front-wheel drive! I know, because I had both!

Jack, keep producing videos that "normal" car fans want to watch. First class.

I was a mechanic at a couple Fiat dealers back in the day. I wasn’t impressed with the X1/9 until I drove one. Wow! What a blast! You may be right about the lack of power actually being a virtue. With more power they might have required some suspension mods and they’d become just another MX5. Reminded me of the 850 Spyder. You drove them like you were in an actual race - all the time! Didn’t have enough power to get into trouble with the law.

My X1/9 was a joyous little car - driven the length and breadth of the UK. Lovely and clever design, with a ton of details that took it way beyond its low price. Such a shame it was never developed further.

A good mate of mine had an X1/9 1300/4 at the same time I had my Alfa Sprint Veloce. These two Italian cars would often be seen haring around the country roads far and wide of the town we lived in as teens. I got to drive the X1/9 quite a bit during the years he had it and I would call it anything but a hairdresser's car - it was nimble and light on its sure-footed feet, but where the mainly Australian-produced vehicles that chased us about would lumber around corners (by comparison to the Italians), the X1/9 just stayed at the same speed and left them in its dust. The Fiat was lighter in the steering to the front-engined Alfa, but it seemed more precise even at higher speeds, whereas the Alfa almost needed power steering at carpark speeds. Here in New Zealand we use kilometres per hour and Steve would drive the X1/9 around corners with posted recommended speeds at the equivalent MILES per hour.....and the difference between 80km/h and 80mph is quite significant, but the little car never lost footing and just hugged in tighter. The X1/9 was a scalpel compared to the likes of a Huracan's mallet when it comes to handling and outran so many vehicles through the winding roads of this country that were way more powerful, much younger and considered brilliant for their handling ability.....and yet I never saw Steve raise a sweat as one does when a car is On The Limit....because the car just wasn't. I can attest to the fact they are able to get the weekly shop for a single bloke under that front bootlid too, as I had to borrow it while Steve was replacing the tappet bucket on the Alfa's #3 inlet valve. Made a few people stare - that's for sure! The X1/9 eventually got the 1500/5 transplant and was much more liveable, with the car now way more capable on the hills as well as the flat. Fuel economy was similar, as was the top speed (about 110mph), just that the 1500 got there slightly quicker and the 1300 needed a downhill slope to push through the ton without waiting for the seasons to change. Both engine / driveline setups were brilliant in that if you wound it out to the red line in one gear, the power band was immediately available to you in the next and this is why she was such a force to be reckoned with in getting from place to place so effortlessly. I never felt like the car was going to let go of the road and it was a car that seemed to keep asking you to put your foot down and play. I'd certainly love to have one myself now....but sadly, most of the ones in this country are now full of fibreglass resin and plastic and what little metal remains is still trying to rust away.

I had one of these back in the day, I bought the smaller engined one for my wife. It was a great fun car to drive, it felt like it was on rails, so stable. You could even drive in the rain with the roof stowed, the rain just went over the top (had to careful not to stop though !) and similarly during the winter, the heater pumped out enough heat to keep you warm without the roof. Eventually a family came along and the little two seater had to go.

I loved mine too. My 'baby' Ferrari. 1979 model 1500cc. Traded a 1500cc Spitfire for it. Not a pristine car mine but fab. The Targa top was excellent. I loved the mid engine concept so much after that, that I bought a written-of 1982 Lotus Esprit S3 and fully rebuilt it ! The Lotus is still around today !!!!!

I used two of these 1500/5sp cars as daily drivers, for years. They were great-handling cars, and with a few minor mods - Konis, anti-roll bars, and sticky tires - you could run rings around much faster cars, on the right roads. The brakes were NOT "weak", as long as they were well-maintained - again, upgraded pads helped.. Aah, memories...

This is almost a, "So what's not to like?" episode. I would far rather dig into the optimum power band of a small "willing" engine than have massive power to spare. Using all the power all the time is a sure formula for the fun you were clearly having tossing this thing into the twisties. The 'time warp' nature of this example made this an especially entertaining video.

I have driven loads of those little cars, I enjoyed every mile, easy to do when they belong to other people. I had to drive them because I had a contract with a local Fiat dealership to dewax all the new cars and clean all the second hand cars they were going to put in the showroom. I bought a Fiat 124 saloon car for £75 from them and drove it for a long time. It was far better to drive than most of the similar British cars. It could go too! The X1/9 was a whole heap of fun to drive, I think Dallara has made some sports cars from them, for racing. Watching you revving the little motor took me right back to how it was to just rev the nuts off it, screaming around country lanes with a big grin on your face, happy days! I'm an "old boy racer" nowadays.

75bhp from 1300cc may not sound much today, but back in the early 1970s it was comparable with the competition like the Triumph Spitfire and MG Midget.

The X19 had HUGE potential, that was never properly exploited by Fiat sadly. With some development it could have been a very highly regarded car. The "hairdressers car" moniker was probably brought about by the fairly modest power output in what looked like a very powerful car. Really Fiat should have developed a Turbo version in time, but they chose to do that with the Uno Turbo. Some people did the Uno Turbo engine swap(which was pretty much drop-in) and it resulted in a staggeringly good car! Issues however were pretty serious, rust and sticking the distributor under the leaky carburettors resulted in the scrapheap and a number of burnt out wrecks. However......... great car and a bag of sand in the front boot made it even better!

I used to love them back in the day. Nothing has changed, still love the look of them.

My mother's family owns several new car dealerships and back in the day they sold both Opel through the Buick franchise and the X1/9, which eventually became Bertone after FIAT left the North American market, through their FIAT/Lancia dealership. When my aunts and uncles reached driving age they got a new car and most of them chose either the Opel Manta or GT or the X1/9. Those that chose the FIAT remember them rusting after their first Midwestern winter thanks to salty roads and continuous electrical niggles as well as wheel bearing failures. I had an uncle that drove his from Wisconsin to California and he said he had to buy cotton to put in his ears a few hundred miles into the trip because the engine was spinning at 4,500 to 5,000 RPM just keeping up with interstate traffic and he was getting a headache from the noise. But everyone that had one said that if they were still available they'd buy one in a second as a weekend car because they were so much fun to drive.

My dad had a Regatta (double T in Argentina) with that 1.5 engine. The sound it made is the reason why I became a mechanic. 35 years since that and if I close my eyes I can still hear that little engine screaming at 6.000 rpm.

Many have commented about the inaccuracies in what was front (128) and rear (124) drive, and as an addition…bertone WERE contracted to produce a spyder version of the 128, but it was to have front wheel drive. Bertone hated it so did the X19 behind fiats back, showed it at the motor show and won Fiat over. I’ve had two and only one rotted and that was due to a bad repair after accident damage. If the gear selection is vague then that’s down to the selector bushes, and you can upgrade these with nylon or poly-bushes

I love the reviews of the quirky/interesting cars of the past. Keep up the good work!

In 1979, I bought one of these (in green) brand new off the showroom floor. Loved driving it as it would take on corners like a beast, pulling 0.779 g in the turns. The 1.5L fuel-injected 5-speed was enough to take on my friends 280ZXR so long as there were a lot of twists and turns, as that was where I was always able to catch up and pass him. Sadly, the US models that had AC had some wrong pulleys used, tossed the belts on a long drive, and took out the head gasket. Off to the nearest dealer it went as it was still under warranty. I was told it needed a new short block and with basically none in the supply chain, was going to delay its return. The day came and I got it back, and all seemed well for a while, and just as the warranty ran out, it developed a rod knock. As I was working at a family-operates import car repair shop (for something to do while I was on shore duty at Great Lakes), I ordered a set of std bearings, pulled the pan and through disassembly and careful measurements) discovered a short block had not been installed under warranty, but that one rod journal had been machined to use 0.020” over bearings. I shimmed the std set I bought using layers of 0.002”brass shim stock, filed the bearing ends and hand-fitted a set of bearings. Problem solved, ran the snot out of it too, until the alternator went out and wasn’t a Magnetti-Martello alternator to be found. Pulled the warning light on the cluster, charged the battery every few days while I waited for my order to arrive. The day came, the Fiat was driven to the Ford dealer and used as the trade in (still dead alternator) for my 1982 Mustang GT, and off I went!

The key feature of the X1/9 was SAFETY. It’s made from scratch to fit the new regulations in USA (very important market with the 124 Spider already a great seller). They stipulated all open cars would need a targa roof for roll-over protection (it never materialized) and also the new ”indestructable” bumpers. The X1/9 indeed showcased a cutting edge safety passenger cell with front/rear crumple zones. For its time, it was a very safe little sportscar - hence the somewhat surprising weight. (Fiat did a lot of safety concept cars in those days)

I had one of identical spec to that in the 80s so delighted to see that one. Whenever it broke down, the AA guys always said the same thing: “Uh-oh - Mussolini’s revenge!” Fabulous handling car though, with such a low polar moment of inertia, when it did go, it went very quickly. I love the contra-rotating instruments. Mine didn’t rust too badly but the headlights were useless they were so dim. That little Veglia clock in the dash, was £50 as a spare (a fortune in the 80s) - mine didn’t have one.