Introduction
A car so good I bought it twice. I first bought this car in January 2018 where it had 53k on the clock at the time. It was in very very good condition and looked/sounded the part with its anthracite wheels, ragazzon group N exhaust and Abarth badges. Loved every minute of owning it but was forced to sell it a year later due to my job being all motorway driving. So chopped it in for a 2007 Alfa Romeo Brera 2.4, had to keep it Italian. It was on around 60k miles at the time.
Ever since I sold it, a Panda shaped hole had been missing in my life, kept looking to see if the Panda would come up for sale again and it did three times, every time of which I was unable to purchase it back for one reason or another. Fast forward to 2024 and on a Panda group on Facebook a post was shared from Practical Classics Magazine which features a certain 2007 White 100HP, my old 100HP. I had to find out who owned it so asked cooperman who had uploaded the post on Facebook for more details, turned out the magazine editor was the owner. So obviously I had to get in contact with him. It was part of his fleet of many vehicles and would be looking to move it on, so of course I wanted first dibs on it, which he happily agreed on. Bought the car off Danny of Practical Classics Magazine in August 2024 who was going to donate the money for the Panda to charity, so was nice that it was going to be for a good cause and I would get my Panda back.
In those five years of it being away from me, it had gone through five extra owners, and it showed. The car was and still is a bit of a mess. Lots of dings, scratches, all over inside and out. Now sitting on 75k miles too, so not really a lot of miles added in 5 years for what seemed like a lot of wear and tear. This car definitely needed rescuing and I'm going to be the one to do that.
Since buying it back many bits and bobs have been done:
2 air vents replacing the broken ones
Door cards taken off to fix some rattles
Replace broken sunvisor (I broke it on the way to Festival Italia, whoops)
Change the spark plugs
Replace coil packs
Change the engine mounts with some additional powerflex inserts
Changed the original gear leaver mechanism for a 2022 Fiat 500 one
Bought some new old stock Panda floor mats
Semi de-Abarth'd it with some original blue Laurel Fiat badges, keeping the Abarth wheel badges for the 'Fiat Abarth' look
Plenty more still to do, most notably an inspection to check the rust situation. All being well with that then more of the things I'd like to do with the car will be done.
Ever since I sold it, a Panda shaped hole had been missing in my life, kept looking to see if the Panda would come up for sale again and it did three times, every time of which I was unable to purchase it back for one reason or another. Fast forward to 2024 and on a Panda group on Facebook a post was shared from Practical Classics Magazine which features a certain 2007 White 100HP, my old 100HP. I had to find out who owned it so asked cooperman who had uploaded the post on Facebook for more details, turned out the magazine editor was the owner. So obviously I had to get in contact with him. It was part of his fleet of many vehicles and would be looking to move it on, so of course I wanted first dibs on it, which he happily agreed on. Bought the car off Danny of Practical Classics Magazine in August 2024 who was going to donate the money for the Panda to charity, so was nice that it was going to be for a good cause and I would get my Panda back.
In those five years of it being away from me, it had gone through five extra owners, and it showed. The car was and still is a bit of a mess. Lots of dings, scratches, all over inside and out. Now sitting on 75k miles too, so not really a lot of miles added in 5 years for what seemed like a lot of wear and tear. This car definitely needed rescuing and I'm going to be the one to do that.
Since buying it back many bits and bobs have been done:
2 air vents replacing the broken ones
Door cards taken off to fix some rattles
Replace broken sunvisor (I broke it on the way to Festival Italia, whoops)
Change the spark plugs
Replace coil packs
Change the engine mounts with some additional powerflex inserts
Changed the original gear leaver mechanism for a 2022 Fiat 500 one
Bought some new old stock Panda floor mats
Semi de-Abarth'd it with some original blue Laurel Fiat badges, keeping the Abarth wheel badges for the 'Fiat Abarth' look
Plenty more still to do, most notably an inspection to check the rust situation. All being well with that then more of the things I'd like to do with the car will be done.
. So bought some FIAMM's for the Panda with some lovely Pingu looking noot noot trumpets which were fitted 05/04/25. It's safe to say this is a proper horn, ultra loud, makes a great noise, makes everyone laugh when you're messing around and makes people completely jump out their skin when used for its intended use. Much recommended upgrade.
Back to the BMC, not the most straightforward thing to fit, some absolutely terribly printed instructions to show how it should sit in the engine bay, pixelated is putting it lightly, may as well have been a photo of a potato. But the wording was more useful, 3 screws on the battery tray had to be sliced off in order to make room, as well as a bracket holding on the plug for the ignition leads, even after that it is sat in the engine bay very snug, so I lined both side with some Tesa tape the give it something a bit softer to lean against if it does move ever so slightly. It's not the neatest engine bay with some wires here and there for the airhorns and other bits and pieces, but hey, it's a project car not a showpiece, so I'm not overly fussed. The breather pipe was the more scary part to change as I've seen many nightmare stories of the inlet manifold piece snapping off, so I took a stanley blade and put it under a flame to get it nice and hot and cut through the pipe like butter to limit any strain on the manifold. And then made sure the new part was nice lubed up and even put some heat on that too so it could just slide on, but even then it was a bit snug, but thankfully it's all on and that should be the end of my oily smell coming from the engine bay.
