I'm watching but I ain't got time to read this shit, which is fucking impressive.

:popcorn:

The Toyobaru has totally shifted my perception of new cars, reliability, and warranty repair. In short, it's all garbage, wait a few years read the forums assess for yourself and buy used is my new philosophy. I couldn't care less what ranking Fiat gets or how their models stack up to competition, if I want the car I'll go for the details from owners.

If you would have surveyed me about some of my ex-girlfriends at the time I dated them, I would have been very enthusiastic about their "quality" but looking back, I know if I would have kept them they would have cost me a LOT of money and ultimately made me miserable.

Italian cars are like crazy women... They're great fun, briefly.

edit: that's what we call "biased opinion" for the sake of comedy.

Spy shots of the Spider:

http://jalopnik.com/2017-fiat-124-sp...-it-1733363750

Looks even worse than the ND from those pictures.

Looks a bit like an S2k in terms of profile, also lots more front overhang than the ND imo, maybe the 1.4L MultiAir isn't so layout friendly.

Surprisingly more conservative than the ND I think.

look like this randerhttp://www.j-sd.net/wp-content/uploa...124_spider.jpg

All for a Miata with Italian styling and more power.

In the spy photos, the car looks a tick or three more mature than Mazda's version. Cars styled that way take to wheels/tires and ride height modifications and still retain their class. This actually looks like an adults car. The front and rear don't forceably taper down as with the Mazda version, instead staying more upright like the original Fiat 124s.

Digging the long hood, short rear deck (kind of Viper-esque) and Maserati styling of the tail lamps. Looking for less grainy pics to get a feel for the body panel sculpting and front end. Not a huge fan of the chrome windshield surround, but that's easily fixable.

Same guesses being made on the engines 1.4L i4T 200HP and 1.7L i4T 240HP. With the extra front overhang it definitely has the room for the larger powerplant.

:bellyroll:

I'll eat my pants if it's not the exact same 1.4L MultiAir in the Abarth and Dart, ~160hp and ~170 ft-lbs and the best sounding I4 I've ever heard ain't much to complain about in a sub 2,400 lb roadster. I haven't seen them ship that engine with more power than that, feel free to correct me though.

Supposedly a tune is good for +40hp, at least that's what MOPAR claims.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/magneti...venom-concept/

This doesn't look so bad:
http://roadracemotorsports.com/store...oducts_id=2100

Here's what it actually looks like

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...0373425442.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...0466406946.jpg

I'd also be happy with the 1.4L turbo and think it's the most likely engine. Tuners regularly take that up to 200 - 260 whp with a tune and sometimes intake. The road race motorsports piggyback kit you linked was demo'd on the tuner on 500 Abarth episode of Jay Leno's garage quoted ~240whp with stock internals and rock solid reliability. Obviously there'd be a loss in linearity and of course the introduction of lag, but it still hard to argue with an extra 90-100+ whp over the stock MX-5.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJbQ-MDVDuA"]2012 Custom Fiat Abarth - Jay Leno's Garage - YouTube[/ame]

The 1.7L i4T is still a possibility though if the 4C is indeed moving up to become the 6C. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Although I think the 1.4L sounds better than the 1.7.

Uh yeah, that's what we've actually been talking about :thumbsup:

Yeah that's why I linked it, most people offering tunes for the Abarth have really shitty websites, there's was the best I saw, very interesting as I didn't finish the video until after posting but Leno does NOT seem to be a fan of the power, he usually hoots and hollers about a thing if he really likes it, gets excited, but in this one he really seemed to talk up the stock handling and feeling...

Maybe the guy just rubbed him the wrong way, cool that Leno actually owns one, don't think he owns an 86...

Holy shit they murdered his website, used to be able to search what he had and find articles and stuff now it's like a shitty network tv show page.

I aged, like milk, as I read this entire thread. Dear lord.

I missed that post

ah well