Here's my "$600 junker." I bought it from a wrecking yard in Sacramento for $620. It was in their "builder" section, where they sell running cars. The odometer read 118K. The engine was filthy - looked like someone dumped a pile of dirt and bay leaves all over it, but it started and ran fine. The interior was in exceptional shape for a junkyard car...heck, the whole car was in great shape for a junkyard car. It had been hit in the front at some point in its life, and decently repaired. Judging by the bodywork evident from inside the front trunk, someone submarined under a bigger car/truck and dented the nose, but not badly. Too bad they left the Bertone emblem off! The power windows didn't work, and I after purchasing it, found out it needed a water pump and second gear was toast. The water pump was my first repair, and yes, the car has A/C. What a way to start out my introduction to X1/9 ownership & maintenance! The throttle cable went out the following week... I fixed one window (had to weld up the motor mounting brackets), but have yet to tackle the second. The car passed smog with flying colors, and runs like a champ. I've probably got just under $1000 in the car with registration, smog, brake & lamp inspection (req'd to register a junkyard car), and parts.
Here's how it looked the day I brought it home:
I picked up a set of good KYB gas struts from the junkyard (the old ones were well worn). I cut 1.5 coils off the front spring. The first two pics show the ride-height difference. The Momo steering wheel was a $8 junkyard item (I had to clean a bunch of silver paint off it - yuk!). Oh, and the front grille/spoiler are now fixed. These pics show how half the grille got taken out by some cones at an autocross, and I took off the spoiler so it wouldn't sag w/o the support of the grille. The spare tire is on because of a flat tire, which happened at the same autocross.
This page last updated: January 25, 2001
This page created: May 1, 2000