Rubbish Cars We Love: Fiat X-19 – Ryan O’Neal Wasn’t Always Fat

And neither was Fiat always crap. Choose to dismiss their X-19 roadster at your peril. It’s the best two-seater sports car (very) little money can buy.

What? When?:

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for… nope, sorry, that was The A-Team. The X-19 has a similarly stupid name, but is a car; not a TV series featuring Rohypnol-spiked milk.

Back to 1972, when the first saleable X-19 rolled off Fiat’s busy conveyor. Styled by Italian design house Bertone, this charming little targa-top racer was an instant smash. It survived Pampers-American safety regulations and a confusing rebadging in the early 1980s (Bertone sold the same model through Fiat’s own dealers) to squeeze out seventeen whole years in production. That’s sixteen more than DeLorean managed, folks.

The X-19 is, for want of a better phrase, a bloody good car: rear wheel drive, MacPherson stuts, low profile tyres and no pointless electronic gubbins to detract from a speedy, mostly legal and always stupendously enjoyable driving experience. French Autopress once described the X-19 as a "mini Ferrari." Well, they eat better than us, so chances are they know more about cars too.

And how much will you have to cough up for a classic X-19? Just £1,500 ought to do it. That is even less than London tourists pay to go south of the river.

You Don’t See Many X-19s About:

We beg to differ. Maybe you just haven’t been looking in the right places? Enthusiasts seldom let their babies out during the working week, but a Sunday afternoon cruise along tree-lined A-roads will normally throw up a couple of nice examples. Real devotees’s X-19s can be identified as being buffed and vacuumed more than a Royal stagecoach. Needless to say, these cars also make the best buys second hand.

Looking at the movies, X-19s are rarer than a Kirsten Dunst nude scene. We located a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it showing in 1978’s The Driver starring Ryan O’Neal. That took us a whole afternoon too, so we are guessing it did not do more than pass Ryan’s mullet-obscured eye-line.

Hollywood’s loss was Joe Public’s gain. The X-19 is a near-undiscovered gem and a definite future classic. One day, hopefully sometime soon, even those pop-up headlamps might look cool again.

Sold:

Not so fast, you have got to find a decent one first and that can be a tricky old business. Buy carefully and the little Fiat will make you happier than pre-warmed toilet paper, rush in headfirst and you will be delivering Innovations catalogues to pay for the garage bills.

Checks must be made: no rust on the sills (stone chip abuse), no ‘mayonnaise’ (white, gloopy substance that spells trouble) in the oil filter, dampers should not have excessive play (pricey job to fix) and do spend extra time inspecting those all-important electrics (i.e. try more than just the windows).

You will be looking at about £3,000 for a top spec X-19 in excellent condition, with £700 being about as low as you should drop for a bald-tyre runabout. We have found something more akin to the latter on eBay. Have a look; it is certainly not concourse, but is still worth a gander. You rolls the dice and takes your chances…

Nifty fun and less hairy-chested than a similarly priced Toyota MR-2, the X-19 will be about for a while yet. Though we are not the only ones to have caught onto its cutesy Italic charm, chances are an X-19 will cost you nearly twice as much in the next 2-3 years. As someone without a job might say, "it’s an investment opportunity."

And with only two seats you will also be equipped with a great excuse for having no friends.

[story by Chris Laverty]