Barchetta - Any advice.

The genuine UK Barchetta IS NOT an import.

The car is only made in left hand drive. They are UK spec, support,
warranty, spares etc. in every repsect except for the steering wheel being
on the LHS.

The lights are uk. The speedo reads UK MPH primary, km secondary. The
trip/distance is in miles not km.

This is a must have compared to the competition IMHO. Far cheaper, full of
original Italian flair ansd styling.

As with all soft top cars hoods and rear screens will wear with time and
Fiat original replacement are axpensive. Rear screen is about £80.

The Barchetta is built on the Punto 1.8ie running gear and suspension (
nearest to Punto HGT) so the car is not alone on the basic mechanical side
of things. Clearly trim and panels are different.

The Barchetta is also hand built. In this respect one could ardue that this
is a good or bad point. The good and bad virtues are based around a machine
out of spec rapidly reproducing the same erros many times before the error
is spotted, vs, a sloppy human on a Friday afternoon.

The coachwork on the Barchetta is really hand built. To this end you will
find very slight variations in panel alignment if you are really critical
with a magnifying glass. If you don't know this fact you won't spot the
variation. The most obvious area (if you know where to look) is around the
front of the car in the bonnet and headlamp interface area. The car has
what appears to be a continuous wing to wing section, however the two wings
are separate and there is a front panel member that joins at the inner side
of the headlamps. At this join one cand see in most cars are slight
variation in line and gap between the bonnet and the wing/front clearances.

Nick /////


"Paul Cannon" <pau.lcannon.RemoveThis@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:VNRCe.2909$Hd4.1111@newsfe2-gui.ntli.net...
>I am toying with the idea of getting one of these. Anyone had experience of
>them. I'm concerned about them being left hand drive, servicing and getting
>parts considering they are an import.
>
> Thanks.