ThoughtSpurs

I had a love hate relationship with my Fiat 500 'Bambina'. Got knows what possessed me to possess it in the first place. It was frighteningly underpowered for Auckland's motorway system. It was reliably unreliable. But it was cute and repairs were easy. For fun one weekend I dropped the motor out of the rear compartment using nothing more than a few spanners and large piece of 4x2. I could remove the entire engine by hand - it weighed less (when detatched from the gearbox) than the motor of my Norton Dominator motorcycle which had the same engine displacement (5oocc). I have fond memories of driving the Bambina along the sand at Uratiti beach just north of Waipu with the canvas top rolled back. I could stand up in my budgie smugglers and drive the thing with my reedy body poking up through the sunroof cavity like the commander of a Carro d'assalto Fiat 3000 invading Ethiopia in 1935. I terrified my girlfriend and seagulls alike in search of a nice quite spot where we c...