Silver Streak (1976) (imdb.com)
Fiat X1/9, I believe.
Those things could be fun. As I recall, the Dallara 'icsunonuove' (that's X1/9 in Italian) had 200hp in that bitty and highly stiff frame. Gandini of course did the Countach and other famous designs...
For those who remember certain Niagara pictures...https://silodrome.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Fiat-X19-768x498.jpg
Fiat X1/9 - Wikipedia
I bought a new yellow X1/9 like that in Silver Streak in 1974 when they first came to the US. A fun little car. Although I was a GM employee at the time, my rank and salary were too low to be eligible for the salaried employee discount program. I parked in the back of the lot at EMD where the non-GM cars were tolerated. This was my 4th Fiat, I know I was a glutton for punishment, so knew to get it rustproofed immediately. But the Ziebart dealer had never seen one before so they did the complete underside including the radiator; eventually, they agreed to pay for the radiator cleaning.
bogie_engineerBut the Ziebart dealer had never seen one before so they did the complete underside including the radiator; eventually, they agreed to pay for the radiator cleaning.
I managed to thread neatly through the era without ever getting near driving an X1/9 (although I had a friend with a TR7 and another with a Lancia Scorpion). Part of that was general fix-it-again-Tony prejudice; someone a class ahead of me in high school had a 124 Spyder, which was beautiful when it ran and still beautiful when it didn't, which was often. I now have a neighbor across the service drive with a near-immaculate one which he keeps running nicely.
As an amusing aside: in the mid-Seventies, the PRR yard south of the Princeton campus had only been recently 'repurposed' as student parking... in fact it had been illegal to have a car there as an undergraduate until not too long before... and every year folks would abandon some interesting things as they graduated or moved on. One of these was a Fiat Abarth 500, which had one of the most delicate cast headers I've ever seen on any engine. I actually tinkered with this to make illegal runs over to the Burger King that had just opened up in Hamilton (there being at the time NO other accessible fast food south of Belle Mead) and it was a nifty little thing, but the old adage that you had to spend your weekends tuning and retuning to keep going was true for that car...
I have always suspected that one of the reasons behind the Fiero involved the success of the X1/9 -- you might be in a position to know this 'from the inside'.
Overmod ... I managed to thread neatly through the era without ever getting near driving an X1/9 (although I had a friend with a TR7 and another with a Lancia Scorpion). Part of that was general fix-it-again-Tony prejudice; someone a class ahead of me in high school had a 124 Spyder, which was beautiful when it ran and still beautiful when it didn't, which was often. I now have a neighbor across the service drive with a near-immaculate one which he keeps running nicely.
Still have the 1979 TR7 Convertible that I bought new.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Of the two cars he stole in the movie, I'd take the first one (Jaguar XKE 2+2) over the Fiat X1/9.
Dan
bogie_engineer I bought a new yellow X1/9 like that in Silver Streak in 1974 when they first came to the US. A fun little car. Although I was a GM employee at the time, my rank and salary were too low to be eligible for the salaried employee discount program. I parked in the back of the lot at EMD where the non-GM cars were tolerated. This was my 4th Fiat, I know I was a glutton for punishment, so knew to get it rustproofed immediately. But the Ziebart dealer had never seen one before so they did the complete underside including the radiator; eventually, they agreed to pay for the radiator cleaning.
roundstick3@gmail.comEarl Scheib "I paint any car for 99.95" or something like that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auvf7DDw5z0
There are still Earl Scheib places, but since 2010 they are independently owned. Uh oh, better get MAACO...
99.95 in 1975 how much per week did the average 45 hour a week college student working stiiff make? Party Girl nils daddy's car how many tables waiting would she have to to make 99.95...Even 50 hours working for Penn Central as a yard dog did not make you a rich man at the end of the week.
Correct me if I am wrong, but, the first car he stole in Silver Streak was a Jaguar XKE."Pure ***"!
.
roundstick3@gmail.com99.95 in 1975 how much per week did the average 45 hour a week college student working stiiff make? Party Girl nils daddy's car how many tables waiting would she have to to make 99.95...Even 50 hours working for Penn Central as a yard dog did not make you a rich man at the end of the week.
When I hired out on the B&O in 1965 the first 'full rate' job I worked paid almost $3 per hour. A friend of mine who worked for a unionized supermarket chain in the area was earning a near equivalent amount in that same time frame.
The friend got a car painted by Earl Sheib - seems that beyond glass - windshield, back window etc - masking was a extra cost option and Earl painted everything that wasn't masked.
I was in the Navy in the 1970s with a guy from Waukesha, Wisconsin who worked at an Earl Scheib. One day, all they had to work on was a 65 Corvair. The entire crew worked on it and gave it a paint job worthy of the Pebble Beach concours. The owner took everyone to the bar after work and bought the crew all the beer they could drink.
The two guys that I knew that had Fiat X 1/9s both spun them into telephone poles and punched the rear axle through the gearbox case and that was the end of them.
BigJim Correct me if I am wrong, but, the first car he stole in Silver Streak was a Jaguar XKE."Pure ***"!
2+2
IMCDb.org: 1967 Jaguar XK-E 2+2 FHC Series I in "Silver Streak, 1976"
When the E-type (or XKE) Jaguar was first introduced, Enzo Ferrari said that the only thing wrong with it is that it wasn't a Ferrari. High praise, indeed.
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