Alez
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| posted on 10/10/13 at 11:42 PM |
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Mini vs. Fiat 126?
Why is the Mini so hugely popular as a track day car project (with so many different upgrades and conversions to the configuration, power train,
rolling chassis and so on) compared to the Fiat 126? Why would one choose an FF car for a project over a (seemingly) similar RR one?
[Edited on 10/10/13 by Alez]
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Bare
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 02:47 AM |
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Bit Biased here :-) Campaigned a Copper S in the early 70's in C sedan. road course racing.
Despite being of erm.. indeterminant build quality. The Min's could be coaxed into spectacular performances.
Nothing like putting a well sorted one into a 45 degree angle drift whilst holding all the power output that the thing could be made to generate.
Faster than a Lot of (in retrospect admittedly) Crap competition but it was seriously fun and thrilling.
Fiats were the wrong place and wrong time.. basically
[Edited on 11/10/13 by Bare]
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T66
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 03:47 AM |
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Ive owned Minis when I was a lot younger, and always fancied a Mini special, so when the ZCars Minis came on the market Ive always had half an eye on
them as a possible garage project, just didnt like the cost.
Personally I think the Mini has and will always be very popular in GB, its new form is also very popular, and adds to the appeal of an older model.
Just look how popular the old Fiat 500 is now, they shot up in price after the release of the new 500. Even the 126s started going up in price, as the
500s were becoming more expensive to acquire.
The 126 has a reasonable following here, but not in the numbers Mini has, as Ive discovered the following for Fiats is much stronger in the likes of
Poland/Latvia/Lithuania/Czech Rep/Italy. As the Fiat is "their" common small/cheap car.
They buy Minis in Italy to be "different", that's why I have a Fiat. Preference would of been a 600 or one of the copies, ie
Zastava/Seat etc. But just finding a decent one was impossible without going into Europe. So I ended up with a 126. Mine is the last picture
But at least its different
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 09:41 AM |
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Thanks for the interesting posts and the nice pics.
T66, what's your plan for the power train? Surely mid engine?
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 09:57 AM |
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quote:
Preference would of been a 600 or one of the copies, ie Zastava/Seat etc. But just finding a decent one was impossible without going into
Europe. So I ended up with a 126.
From a purely aesthetics perspective, the 126 works a lot better for me than the 600. Seat 600 are very, very popular here in Spain. I'll take a
few pictures for you next time there's a classics meeting, they do one or two every year at the Jarama circuit near where I live and
there's plenty attendance of Minis and 600, never seen any 126 or 500 at all, though, or say 133 (RR Seat original) or 127, which I think were
never popular at all as track day projects. Mini aside, all the popular ones here have a RR configuration. This particular Simca 1000 Rallye is very
popular on these meetings, his owner does a lot of hillclimbing with it:
[Edited on 11/10/13 by Alez]
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owelly
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 10:39 AM |
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If we're talking about Simcas and Fiats, we need to mention Mick. He has a few.....
http://forum.ppcmag.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11252&sid=aae2b3c676357cb0c802b6a9293e4a4b
http://forum.ppcmag.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9833&sid=aae2b3c676357cb0c802b6a9293e4a4b
http://forum.ppcmag.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9998&sid=aae2b3c676357cb0c802b6a9293e4a4b
[Edited on 11/10/13 by owelly]
http://www.ppcmag.co.uk
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 11:29 AM |
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quote:
If we're talking about Simcas and Fiats, we need to mention Mick. He has a few.....
http://forum.ppcmag.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11252&sid=aae2b3c676357cb0c802b6a9293e4a4b
http://forum.ppcmag.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9833&sid=aae2b3c676357cb0c802b6a9293e4a4b
http://forum.ppcmag.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9998&sid=aae2b3c676357cb0c802b6a9293e4a4b
Nice!
I haven't done much research but that's the first 133 track day project I know of.
[Edited on 11/10/13 by Alez]
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T66
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 11:43 AM |
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Like the Simcas ....
Alez - My sister in law lived in Spain in the late 70s - she had a Seat 600 with suicide doors, and vinyl seats - loved it
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 11:44 AM |
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quote:
Mini aside, all the popular ones here have a RR configuration. This particular Simca 1000 Rallye is very popular on these meetings, his owner
does a lot of hillclimbing with it:
Other good examples of this are the Seat 1430 (based on the Fiat 124) and the Renault 8:
[Edited on 11/10/13 by Alez]
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 11:54 AM |
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600:
Mini with two 600 behind:
These two pictures and the previous two were taken at the Jarama track last year during this classics meeting. I've just found out that this
year's meeting will take place on Sunday the 20th of this month 
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T66
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 01:01 PM |
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Like the Renault 8 ! Love Spain......
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 03:02 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by T66
Like the Renault 8 ! Love Spain......
Send me a U2U if you come to Madrid It's not and expensive trip at all...
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 03:07 PM |
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quote:
T66, what's your plan for the power train? Surely mid engine?
Maybe you missed this?  I'm really curious, the bodywork looks lovely. If you have already talked about your plans for the powertrain, a link
will do of course Cheers.
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Bare
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 03:57 PM |
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Owned an R8 Gordini.. for 4/5 years IMO A garbage car. Gear shift that was more guesswork than anything else Good brakes Decent Power ..If.. you wound
it up hard enough.
Handling? Pure Rubbish! Rear engined and unbalanced Not a winning Combo.
One could (had to) work hard to get a passable lap time.
Then jump into a Mini and beat that time, every time... without even trying hard!
Minis were EASY to drive at 10/10. BIG advantage
Renault? Only by working up a sweat and seriously risking it all.
A car Best forgotten imo.
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JC
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 04:31 PM |
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Check out the Z cars website - Fiat 500 with a Subaru engine 
OMG
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 06:22 PM |
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quote:
Owned an R8 Gordini.. for 4/5 years IMO A garbage car. Gear shift that was more guesswork than anything else Good brakes Decent Power ..If..
you wound it up hard enough.
Handling? Pure Rubbish! Rear engined and unbalanced Not a winning Combo.
One could (had to) work hard to get a passable lap time.
Then jump into a Mini and beat that time, every time... without even trying hard!
Minis were EASY to drive at 10/10. BIG advantage
Renault? Only by working up a sweat and seriously risking it all.
A car Best forgotten imo.
Well, this alone explains my initial question, maybe the 126 has R8 handling, I mean these days you are probably looking at replacing its rolling
chassis or fundamental bits of it anyway, but back in the days maybe handling as stock was a key factor.
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Alez
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| posted on 11/10/13 at 06:25 PM |
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quote:
Check out the Z cars website - Fiat 500 with a Subaru engine
Love it!!! They even managed to keep the rear seats Ride quality at the back must be "interesting" I'm sure
Great job, I would've sweared it wouldn't fit... and that's after seeing V12 engines on MX-5 and all sorts of lovely nonsense like
that
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mcerd1
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| posted on 18/10/13 at 08:44 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by T66
The 126 has a reasonable following here, but not in the numbers Mini has, as Ive discovered the following for Fiats is much stronger in the likes of
Poland/Latvia/Lithuania/Czech Rep/Italy. As the Fiat is "their" common small/cheap car.
well the polish did keep making their version of the 126 until 1999
they are 'the' polish car of the communist era, cost next to nothing and there are hundreds of thousands of them to choose from over
there....
when I was over there a couple of years ago (north of Kraków) they were literally everywhere once you got out of the city
quote:
Originally posted by T66
They buy Minis in Italy to be "different"
I just got back from rome and there were quite a few classic 500's - but I was amazed how many classic mini's there were, there was one
parked on every other street - from my very unscientific count I'd say there were 10 mini's to every 500
the new 500's massively outnumbered new mini's, but the vast majority of the cars seemed to be punto's, panda's and fair
number of uno's too...
-
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iank
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| posted on 18/10/13 at 10:47 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Alez
quote:
T66, what's your plan for the power train? Surely mid engine?
Maybe you missed this? I'm really curious, the bodywork looks lovely. If you have already talked about your plans for the powertrain, a link
will do of course Cheers.
Try here http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=170178
--
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
Anonymous
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Alez
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| posted on 19/10/13 at 12:19 PM |
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quote:
Try here http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=170178
Many thanks
I suppose most of you know about it, but just in case, Ivan / T66 sent me this link to a great picture log for his project:
http://s582.photobucket.com/user/T66bucket/library/?sort=3&page=1
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Alez
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| posted on 20/10/13 at 07:57 PM |
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This yearly classic car event has just taken place today. Got some pics which I'll be posting, but I wanted to rectify these statements I
made:
quote:
Mini aside, all the popular ones here have a RR configuration.
quote:
Other good examples of this are the Seat 1430 (based on the Fiat 124) and the Renault 8:
The Renault 8 is RR, but the Seat 124 and the 1430, both based on the Fiat 124, are both very popular around here and they have a FR configuration.
I've seen many today.
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Alez
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| posted on 20/10/13 at 08:03 PM |
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I was with my dad today, and he said "yes, there were those 600 Abarth and stuff like that, they all had a tendency to overheat, however, their
biggest problem was, as soon as there was a Mini, there was no possible competition, the Minis were just faster, period".
[Edited on 20/10/13 by Alez]
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