Although more and more Americans were comfortable buying sporty German and Japanese cars in the second half of the 1970s, the idea of ​​relying on Italian cars for daily transportation made sense for a more unique group. For those Americans who desire to commute full of Italian passion and art but need rear-wheel drive (excluding 128 and Lancia Beta sedans) and are cheaper than Alfa Romeo sports cars, Fiat offers 131 1976 to 1981 on these coasts Model year (renamed Brava since 1978). As you might expect, these cars are hard to find in the junkyard these days, like the Mitsubishi Tredias or Rover 3500, but I ran into this 78-year-old car in a yard in Denver last week.

This car has a 2.0-liter version of Fiat's screaming twin-cam four-cylinder engine with a rated power of 86 horsepower. Since the '78 Brava weighed only 2,455 pounds, it would not be painfully slow by the standards of the time.

The five-speed manual transmission was important in the late 1970s, although Brava offered a three-speed automatic transmission.

The speedometer at 120 mph seems very optimistic. I may need to go back and buy that Quarzo clock as my collection.

This vertically loaded glove box and its sliding door showcase the avant-garde Italian design that your BMW and Audi drivers didn't get in 1978.

A 1993 parking sticker from the University of Northern Colorado indicated that the car was still on the road when it was 15 years old (Fiat in North America).

It is a bit rusty, but it should be able to put this car on the road again. what happened? Normally, I can’t answer this question... but it happens that I know something about the recent history of this car.

A few years ago, the owner of an Italian auto repair shop in Englewood, Colorado, passed away. Nearly 100 cars-mainly Fiats from the 1960s to 1980s, but also a few Lancia and Alfa Romeo-piled up in the store's warehouse and sold at low prices. I tried my best to promote all those Fiats that needed permanent residence, but most of them were eventually towed away due to the value of the scrap. In the photo above, you can see today's junkyard lookup in the foreground.

Two years later, we can assume that whoever acquired this Brava tried to find a buyer who paid a few hundred dollars but failed, and then sadly called U-Pull-&-Pay. I hope it will finally seek C-Class glory on the Lemon 24 Hours Endurance Circuit, but local racers are busy with stupid projects and try to make room for more projects. In any case, the car that started his career at a Denver Fiat dealer will end in the Denver Crusher. Car life circle and so on, isn't it?

This is not the first Aspen Motors auction car I have seen recently in a bone yard in the Denver area, but it is the first one I have written. Please stay tuned for future junkyard discoveries, junkyard gems or junkyard treasures, which contain more sad Italian stories.

All standard luxury features of Brava are priced very high, and the suggested retail price of the '78 sedan equipped with the 2000 engine is US$4,995 (approximately US$21,920 today). The price of a new BMW 320i is almost twice its price, at US$9,315.

Fiat left the United States in 1982, but Malcolm Bricklin (Malcolm Bricklin) continued to import 124 Sport Spiders and X1/9s with Pininfarina and Broadcom logos, entering a rather long decade. Fiat returned to our shores nearly ten years ago, which means it is easy to find the Italian theme of this series again.

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I have such a weakness for Italian cars, so I don't know that series is a good thing. I originally wanted to give 128 3P (or 131 like this) a good home.

I have never seen a clock with only odd digits.

The 131 was also an excellent rally car at the time-a bit stronger than its FWD brother.

It's not too late, but you have to go to Russia-there are a lot of almost brand new FIAT-124s on the road in good condition.

My middle school science teacher has one of them. There is a small sign with snowflakes and "climatizzata" on the back of models with air conditioning

I bought a new thing like this on the day of my future BIL... It was definitely fun to drive, but my god was very unreliable. Pushing him into Toyota's arms, he hasn't left yet...

When they are new, I am a fan of them, but the strange thing is that I have never test-driven or visited a Fiat dealer (is there an angle looking at me?). I bought a brand new '78 Audi Fox. It is not reliable, so would I use 131/Strada better? who knows? I don't live in the rust belt, so rust may not be a problem. At that time I didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission (a retired neighbor would teach me), and I might get a three-speed car, as I did with Fox (Fox did not provide a five-speed manual, only four-speed) .

And the store in Denver, there are 100 cars in it—ha! A store 20 minutes away from me is located in Nevada, Texas. It serves Italian cars (Fiat, Alfa, Maserati, Ferrari and Abbas) and advertises that they have *over 200* in the "dream field" Parts car. I only saw this place from the two-lane highway that passed it, but it looked interesting. They have a website that says that they have been in business since 1981, and the people who run it were the neighbors next door when they first met.

I'm pretty sure my old man-otherwise he was from Volvo-drove one of them in the 70s. I got rid of the Dodge Aspen station wagon in 1976 when I was born, and a few years later I bought an AMC Pacer, bought a second car, and exchanged it for a Datsun 210 sedan.

Back to his Volvo in 1981 with 240. The 1970s were difficult times.

These are related to the Fiat 124, it is the basis of the Lada that Russians love, so I doubt that our favorite Russians should weigh how great these are as soon as possible, and they will definitely not build them like this again.

It is called Zhiguli in Russia. Lada (Samara/Sputnik) is a more modern (first appearance in 1984) FWD car and has nothing to do with FIAT. I have never driven Zhiguli because it felt too old when I got my driver's license in the early 90s. But in the 1970s, when it was just launched in the Soviet Union, it was like a revelation to the Soviets who used to ride in clumsy Soviet cars: smoothness, good handling, small exterior and spacious interior, exquisite style, beautiful paint, etc. Wait. The difference between FIAT-124 and Soviet cars is like day and night. It is a car you can actually buy because it was the first actual mass-produced car in the Soviet Union.

The vertically loaded glove box and its sliding doors are influenced by the modern European design of that era. You can also see these themes on other Fiats, such as Ritmo, Strada, and Lancias in the US states. Take a look at some of the furniture at the time. They have similar themes and have aged well over the years.

Talk about past explosions-my friend has a 1980 brown Brava. The original grille had the capital letters FIAT, but in a minor accident it was seen that the grille was replaced by the circular logo seen here. An excellent handling car, at least compared to the typical cars we own. However, reliability is a disaster. The seats are separated as you can see in the photo. The window regulator has broken down several times. The fuel gauge will swing back and forth between the 1/4 fuel tank and the empty fuel tank. The air conditioner is on and the electricity is terrible. Popping through an air purifier is very common. Eventually, when the car reached 60K, he got rid of it. This has stranded him too many times. Unfortunately, because this is an interesting journey, and the fuel consumption is quite good. There are many good memories in that car...

Are we sure this is not a diesel engine? Please pay attention to the "DEF" indicator in the eighth picture (in the gallery).

Was DEF used in cars/diesel engines until 2010? ? ?

I am sure that the DEF in the fiat currency is used for defrosting/defogging.

The second picture shows the same vent, labeled A/C at the top and DEF ("Defrost") at the bottom.

In my 74 128SL, defrosting is just a suggestion.

Oh boy, I remember these. One of my best friends in high school had some money to burn, so he bought a Brava car. He thinks he is progressive and avant-garde, but this is a POS. This car is brand new, but the seats are cracked and the defrost is so weak that we can't keep the windows clean in the winter in the Midwest. I'm sure he suffered a financial blow for this. If this traveled 142,000 miles, I would be shocked.

Compared with the competition, the Italian cars of this era look good, but they are terrible. Everyone I know who bought an Italian car from this period (including those in the European market) regretted it.

Back in 1983, I came to the United States and was looking for a car to travel to the West Coast. I bought a Fiat 131 ($600) like this one, but it was obviously a 2-door version. The only thing I needed to repair was the battery. I drove this car for nearly 3000K miles and there was only one problem, one wheel bearing was broken, and I was stuck in Carmel, California because most car shops wouldn’t even look at this car (they would jokingly say, "Repair "I don't'A'gain'T'ony) Until I found a Polish mechanic to solve this problem, I had to wait 3 days to get the parts. Its driving performance was much better than any American car on the market at the time.

My brother bought a new Fiat 124 sedan in 1978. It is a very good handling car and also good in maintenance. With a manual gearbox, this is not bad. He later exchanged it for a Moto Guzzi motorcycle.

When I visited Ankara and Istanbul, I fell in love with these and took a lot of painful taxis in them.

I need to grab those doors for my Sbarro Windhound!

I have the 1980 version with Bosch FI; ISTR FIAT claims 100HP for it.

This car is absolutely fun to drive. But it seems that driving it for a few weeks makes the driver more impatient in traffic ("...will all these slow idiots in front of me *let me go away*!!!"). Over the years, my wife and I have often changed cars, and whoever drives the Brava is always more impatient.

Over the years, I have owned several FIATs, and they have all been abused by American mechanics. Every Fiat I buy has several assembly errors (clutch cable linkage, thermostat, radiator bracket, poor fan wiring...). After solving these problems, coupled with some old-fashioned faults in FI, my Brava became reliable, easy to start, and fun to drive. However, finding, diagnosing, and repairing the many botched jobs scattered around the car is always a challenge.

Fiat is notorious for its timing belts. Fortunately, the 2.0L engine of this car is a "non-interference" engine.

Transmission is usually great. This mode places the reverse gear below 5th gear, so when the (non-existent) 6th gear is reached, an over-eager driver may choose R. Fiat has installed a clever little tool on the gear lever, which locks R when you pull the lever from 5th gear. Very thoughtful.

The 2.0L engine is an improvement of the prestigious FIAT twincam and has a relatively long stroke ("undersquare"). This slightly increases the low-speed torque, but the engine speed is not high, and the sound it makes is more like "groaning" rather than "exciting". FWIW, dual cameras are legal "half heads", although no one seems to notice.

These cars have super heavy bumpers, making them almost invulnerable in low-speed accidents. Of course, those huge bumpers on both ends of the car make it heavy and unwilling to turn during intense driving. Brava’s rear bumper is *lower* than the front bumper, for styling and too low for American bumper standards; therefore, Fiat installed a higher rear spring, which made the car present an unfortunate "head down" attitude.

Rusting was a problem for every FIAT from the 1970s to the 1980s, but if you live in a salt-free place (such as the San Francisco Bay Area), the rate of rusting is relatively slow. Even more annoying is the windshield seal. Every Fiat I own has a leaky windshield. The wiper of this year's Fiat is very weak. Not a good car in a storm.

My Brava has some weaknesses on the front frame; the front shock towers seem to lean towards each other, giving the front wheels some negative camber that cannot be repaired.

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