While most choose a Ford Fiesta or Volkswagen Polo as their first car, content creator Andrew Coles bought a Fiat X1/9. Almost 20 years later, he still cherishes his little Fiat, so we caught up with the Aussie to learn more about his Gandini-designed classic.
G’Day Andrew! To start, could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and where your love of cars stems from?
I’m a freelance photographer, writer, and content creator, mostly focused on Motorsport. Historic cars are pretty much what I do – I cover all the Goodwood events, the Motor Racing Legends series, that sort of thing.
I’ve been obsessed with cars ever since I was a kid and my dad has been heavily into cars since he was younger, particularly Italian cars. He had Ducati motorbikes and Fiats when they were new back in the 1970s. You were definitely a bit of an outlier if you were getting around Australia in a Fiat 850 Sport back then.
Very cool! So from what we’ve heard, you’ve had quite a long-standing relationship with your Fiat X1/9. Where did it all start and what drew you to that car?
It was a bit of a weird one. It’s my first car; I bought it in 2004 and I’ve had it for nearly 20 years now, but I never intended to keep it this long.
Here in the UK, I have a 986 Boxster, and it was the same thing that attracted me to it. A lot of people didn’t really love the X1/9, but you look at it and think for the money, you’re getting this car that was designed by Gandini and built by Bertone. There are photos of them on the production line next to the Lancia Stratos, it was built by the same people and in the same factory as these iconic cars. I hate to be that guy, but the door handles are shared with the Stratos and there are Ferrari 308 bits in the interior; all these things play on your mind when you’re a teenager. I couldn’t believe I could afford something like that as my first car.
And what was it like as a first car?
It was a bit of an oddball choice, I was that weird kid driving to school in what many people saw as an old man’s car, but it probably saved me in some respects. All of the things you do as a kid in your first car you can’t do in an X1/9 – there’s way more grip than power. A standard X1/9 is good fun, but very slow, so there’s no skids outside of parties, no drifting, no handbrake turns; none of the things 16-year-old kids usually do to destroy their first cars. That’s what preserved it, to be honest.
In your eyes, how does it compare to Gandini’s other creations?
It has that same wedgy spirit as the Countach visually and it’s a really clever design. There’s a tonne of space: it has a massive boot at the front and another boot in the rear, so it’s quite practical.
Honestly, though, that’s where the similarities end. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s a baby Stratos or Countach because the mechanical package was pulled out of the Fiat 128. You can tune them up to be fun, but aside from the fact that they were built by the same people in the same place and are fun to drive, that’s all they have in common.
We’re in love with that shade of green – is that the factory colour?
The car was green from factory, but frustratingly it’s not exactly the original shade. Now as 35-year-old me — who does this as a job and knows a lot more about cars — it bugs me to no end that it’s not the original shade of green.
The reason was as a kid back in Australia, the body shop guys said if you use an off-the-shelf colour rather than having to manually tiny and colour match a sample, it’s much easier and cheaper. So, it’s close to the factory colour, but it’s a little bit darker than the original green. I still kick myself for that, maybe one day I’ll have to repaint it.
What else went into your restoration?
I wouldn’t call it a restoration, it was a kid and his mates doing the best they could at the time to redo the car. When I got it, it had been painted poorly, and after driving it for a few years, there was some rust starting to come through.
So, I stripped it down and we sent it to a body shop. I was in uni at the time working a part-time job around my studies to pay for it. It was the classic situation where we found a cash-in-hand guy who went out of business just after he finished the car. It was a bit shady, but it actually worked out really well.
