1997 FIAT Coupe

If you’ve ever hankered after the fastest front-wheel-drive car of its time, we’ve got just the example for you. Bought new in 1997, this Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo stayed with the same owner for the next two decades, being sold in 2017 with 84,000 miles after he had celebrated his seventieth birthday.

Taken off the road in 2011 as he could no longer look after it in the way he would have liked, it was fully recommissioned by the current owner who bought it earlier this year. (To say he’s a fan of the Fiat Coupe is something of an understatement as he’s owned 14 of then over the past ten years.) The final bill from the Fiat specialist he used ran to a few pence shy of £3,000, which might be a record!

It has remained completely unmodified over the years and is a reference-quality example of this rapidly vanishing model.

Of course, this being a Fiat, it does have some rust. However, the good news is that the corrosion on this car is limited to very light, superficial surface rust inside the inner lip of the wheelarches, which is a remarkable endorsement of the overall quality of the vehicle and an issue that would be an easy job for the new owner to undertake if he/she likes their cars in concours condition.

The Coupe’s usual weak areas such as the sills, boot floor, inner boot/wing joints, rear inner wings and wheelarches are all utterly free of rust. The floorpans have also been cleaned and rust-proofed by a specialist to ensure they remain pristine for many more years to come.

The original wheels had seen better days, so they were binned and replaced with a better secondhand set. In fact, aside from the wheelarches, the only job left to do on the exterior is to fit four new tyres and give the (probably original) paintwork a good machine polish to minimize the impact of the few stone chips and marks that are an inevitable result of twenty years of regular use.

The Pininfarina-designed interior looks as vibrant and coherent as ever; the word ‘period’ is not one that springs easily to mind because it still looks remarkably modern and easy to live with, which is not something that can be said of every twenty-year-old car.

The black leather seats are almost pristine and while the driver’s side seat bolster is very, very gently creased, there are absolutely no holes, tears or rips. The carpets are almost as good as the day they were fitted and even the plastic driver’s heel protector looks to be almost unworn.

The vehicle comes with the original head-unit and boot-mounted Clarion CD changer and factory fit speakers and it even has all three keys, including the red one that everyone loses.

Speaking of which, the car also comes with its original tool kit and the spare wheel looks like it’s never been used. Even the original, cracked front and rear number plates – still showing the supplying dealer’s logo - are in the boot, just in case you had any doubts as to the car’s provenance or the care with which the recommissioning work was undertaken…

Which brings us nicely to the subject of what that work entailed. In brief, the car was the subject of an intimate and comprehensive inspection and the following parts were replaced: a new original equipment (OE) timing and auxiliary belt; a new brass water pump; a new OE cam phase and crank sensor; a new Valeo radiator, thermostat and OE expansion tank cap; a new oil filter and Millers (10/60) engine oil; new air and fuel filters; five new spark plugs; a new rocker cover gasket; new handbrake cables, OE flexible pipes all round, and new Borg and Beck front and rear discs and pads were fitted along with the refurbished brake calipers; new Borg and Beck front wishbones and drop links; a new steering gaiter kit; new oil cooler pipes and a nearly new oil cooler; a new air conditioning condenser and air conditioning dryer plus a secondhand air conditioning module and a full re-gas of the air conditioning system; a new exhaust mount and clutch slave cylinder; and a new Tungsten battery, secondhand heater resistor pack, and a refurbished alternator.

And breathe…

As can be imagined, the Coupe has been given a clean bill of health mechanically and comes with a new, 12-month MOT.

(It’s a sign of the owner’s OCD that he suggests the suspension springs need replacing because they’ve got some surface rust on them. Damn, you’ve got to love a seller like that, haven’t you?)

HPI-clear, the Fiat Coupe comes with the original sales brochure, owner’s handbook, a stamped service history book, old MOTs and a thick sheaf of invoices and bills.

With a guide price of only £4,000 (or only a little more than the recommissioning bill…) this is an extraordinarily rare opportunity to get your hands on an increasingly rare car. Even those of us that have never considered owning a Fiat Coupe have looked at this example and felt an itch developing we never thought would need scratching.

And, even though the Fiat Coupe Turbo received almost universal praise for its dynamic ability, this might be eclipsed by its investment potential; with good examples having long passed the five-figure mark and continuing to enjoy strong annual growth, the reserve on this car is almost laughably low. We predict that the new owner will probably be able to get five years or more of enjoyable use out of this example and still walk away with a small but healthy profit when the time comes to try something new.

Viewing is always encouraged, and this car can be seen in Liverpool; to arrange an appointment please use the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing. Feel free to ask any questions or make observations in the comments section below, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.

If needed, please remember we have a network of trusted suppliers we work with regularly and can recommend: Thames Valley Car Storage for storing your car, AnyVan for transporting it, and Footman James for classic car insurance.