Hi all
Having become the proud owner of a 126 BIS last month, and having duly joined up, we thought it was about time we broke cover and introduced ourselves.
The 'we' being a father and son team (not forgetting Mum of course), our mission to get Junior's first car up and running in time for him to use as a first car, and learn a bit along the way too. He's 13 at the moment, so I think we should be ok timewise, but I know from bitter experience just how long these projects sometimes drag out!
We're all Italian car fans, but even so it was a bit of a surprise when Junior expressed a preference for a 126 :
"What, you don't fancy a Cinquecento?"
No, too boxy and old fashioned."Errm, and the 126 is...?"
It's just cool! 
"Ok, that's settled then!"
So after a couple of months crawling ads and auction sites we spotted a likely candidate in West London. A troublefree transaction and we were soon dragging a dry stored BIS and a truck load of spares back home down the M5.
Junior has been keen to get stuck in, and soon had the rear bumper off, followed by the rear panel. Although the engine was free to turn over, it didn't want to know, despite new fuel. Found out later the tank was half full of petrol the colour of John Smith's, so no great surprise! So out came the engine and box for a spruce up - can't believe how small it is! The rear suspension had seen better days, so off that came to be dispatched to our local sandblaster. Meanwhile, the interior has started to be stripped out and stored. The seats are in good shape, and surprisingly clean, so have stashed these away for safe keeping, as we've got other ideas for an interior...
It's all quite exciting as various bits arrive, or parts are cleaned up ready for reassembly - just hope we can keep up the momentum! Really impressed with the forum so far. I'm sure we'll run into the inevitable problems as we go along, so I'm hoping you guys will be able to help us out!
Cheers,
Gav & K (Team Flying Carpet)
