24 cars blue sky: Junkyard Find: 1986 Bertone X1/9

15 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Now here's a car that represents a weird little corner of automotive history— one of Malcolm Bricklin's many moneymaking schemes. A few years before Bricklin started importing Yugos, but after he started importing Subaru 360s, he took a shot at bringing Fiats into the United States after Fiat fled the market in 1982.
05 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin So, for the 1983 through 1987 model years, you could buy X1/9s with Bertone badging (Bertone, after all, designed the X1/9 for Fiat in the first place). At the same time, 124 Sport Spiders were sold in the United States as Pininfarinas.
10 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Few bought these things, of course, Fiat having established a vivid reputation for unreliability in the minds of American car buyers by that point. But look— this one racked up as many miles as most Hondas and Toyotas of the era!
12 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin This car is pretty well used up, though the interior isn't too bad.
18 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin I found this car in California, where this sort of body rust indicates that the car spent time parking within a couple of blocks of the ocean.
09 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Look, it's Luccio Bertone's signature on the dash!
07 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Power windows on an X1/9. No comment.
02 - 1986 Bertone X1_9 Down On The Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin In spite of being miserably underpowered, the X1/9 was actually a lot of fun to drive. Even though it was hard-pressed to beat an Iron Duke-powered Chevy Citation in a drag race, the X1/9 felt quick.