Rusty But Trusty

Ever had a hankering for an Alfa Giulia or Berlina? Or, even further down that path, a Giulia Colli wagon? Well, sure, if you have $20-$50K, you can pick one up with a little rust but otherwise in good shape. And never mind the low production numbers, which means most folks haven’t even seen one. So what’s a old-car nut who doesn’t mind a bit of rust to do? Well, there’s another similar-sized wagon with equally significant styling, and what’s more, they also have a twincam, 1.6-liter engine, 5-speed transmission, and rear-wheel drive. And if that doesn’t blow your mind, they were built by the factory, so no struggling to get body panels made by hand when your friendly local Fiat dealer has them in stock, right? Wait, what? There’s no Fiat Mobile Tradition/Classic/Heritage division? you can find this 1974 Fiat 124 TC wagon for sale for $2500 in Burlingame, CA.

But wait! This Italian sports wagon doesn’t just match the Alfa Giulia Colli, it does even better: giant rubber impact bumpers? You won’t find those on the Colli. Three-speed automatic transmission? Look somewhere else, Mr. One Percent. And hey, for that day you’re feeling a little trigger-happy with your wallet, you’ll be glad to know the chrome-bumper conversion is not too hard, and the manual shift conversion means picking the parts off a 131 – while these are also pretty thin on the ground, a pair of parts 131s came up just recently.

So there’s a bit of overspray in the wheel wells, and if you’ll look closely, that appears to be the baseball-sized patch of rust behind the driver’s side front wheel. The early grill is somewhat unusual, and the quad headlight grill would look better on this big-bumper car, but depending on your source, this is original spec. The car is said to have just over 89K miles, although in reality it may have rolled over once, just based on the age of the car.

Only subject to two owners over the last 32 years, this car looks to be well-loved. Many of the interior cosmetic bits seem to be in great shape (note the early-style dash), and frankly, those are probably harder to procure than some metal repairs at this point. With a recent tune-up, and in mechanically great shape, this is the one you’ve been waiting for… if you’ve been waiting.

Tags: 124 tc, Feature, Fiat, italian, wagon

This entry was posted on March 7, 2014 at 4:58 pm and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.