Faults:

Nothing - bit of rust along the roof near the F/F glass sunroof, caused by my own cack handed fitment of a replacement aerial, which allowed water past the seal - doh!

General Comments:

Had 3 of these - a basic OHV 45, a 60S, and this, the latest and the best engined and best equipped. All were MK1s, with the quirky but oh so functional dash. These cars were huge inside, great on fuel, reliable and a fun drive. In the days pre power steering and fancy suspension, cars like this put the driver in touch with what was happening below them.

As ever the engines loved to rev - you don't have to be doing 200mph to have fun behind the wheel, and these cars were fun to drive.

Sadly with modern innovations, FIAT no longer make small cars that are this good.

FORZA UNO!!

Faults:

Had some overheating trouble, when at lights and traffic jams, even when I had the cooling system overhauled and rewired by Fiat (whom don't seem to be interested at all with a car of this age), although I told them money was no object.

Sadly the gearbox went on me, and I found it impossible to source one.

General Comments:

This was one of the best cars I had ever owned. I had a Alfa Romeo 33 Clover Leaf, and a Fiat Strada Abarth. The performance is amazing, as well as fuel costs.

The turbo kicks in lovely at 4000rpm, and I added a K&N filter, which gave an extra 10 horsepower, some Splitfire plugs and always using Agip semi-synth oil.

The cabin was roomy and the seats were comfortable. It does eat tyres though!!!

A great town car with brilliant performance; it once demolished a Porsche 944!!!

Faults:

Nothing at all, just needed 2 clutches in 6 years.

General Comments:

Great little car, my gran had one of these after a Strada, it was a 45, with the all new 'FIRE' engine. It was incredibly noisy, but seemed very very nippy once upto a decent speed, it was also tiny and light (tiny and light as in the doors would slam-shut after you) which meant that it felt as if it was going faster than it really was and would sway from side to side at high speeds.

As with anything old and italian, it was poorly built, the plastics in the interior were incredibly cheap and pasta-like, (would crack easily) but I loved the incredibly basic interior oddly enough, it certainly had charm and the seats were really nice to sit in. The interior also smelt like it was new, probably because the car had only done 25k miles in 10 years, but was still impressive.

Come to think of it, my gran's Uno could have been some kind of special edition as it had thick blue stripey/dotty side markings on the door bottoms and alloy-lookalike plastic wheel trims which actually looked similar to the alloys on Maserati Biturbos of the same era, but were obviously much smaller.

My auntie had a Lancia Y10 at the same time, it was interesting to see the huge amount of parts they shared.

Anyway, I loved it, but it was getting old, old but not unreliable (it's reliability prevented her from selling the Uno earlier on) and seemed very dated by the mid 90s. I'm hoping it lives on today as when we left it, it was nearly A1 except for a few parking dents or so, and it was mechanically sound with only 25k on the clock.

I can't remember the exact reg number, but it was 'E' reg and ended in 'JCW'.