I've owned a couple of normal 1.5l X1/9's and I truely regret selling them they aren't about top speed but handling. They seemed to turn corners like something from Tron. Shame that you couldn't have given it a bit more stick but you were brave to drive it on those semi slicks in winter :-)
Yeh, my wife had one for many years, I did lots of work on that car, and drove it a bit too. I'm tall so it wasn't the most comfortable thing for me on a long drive, but I did love punting it round the streets and gave it a bit of a shove now and then :-) I had a hillclimb/time trial car (a Holden Gemini - I'm in Australia) so was no stranger to nimble cars and fast driving (even though I wasn't that good), and I certainly found the X19's adhesion limits were insanely high, you could plunge into a corner at almost suicidal speed and it would just go round as long as you didn't lift off mid-corner. If you did you were almost certainly going backwards into the scenery, as I almost found out once, I was very lucky to save it. It could have benefited from more horsepower and better brakes, and some plans were in the pipeline to remedy both those "problems" (Alfa twin-cam engine, webers, cams, aftermarket boosted brakes, the usual stuff, although a 13B rotary was on the list for a bit, lol) but the good lady was growing tired of it's impracticality and ease and cost of maintenance, what with there only being one guy in Sydney who really knew his stuff when it came to X19s (Ross, from Fiatorque - a great fella, who helped me out many times and didn't charge me nearly enough for his level of expertise, he was worth more). We were also leaving Sydney and moving to the country and realised the X19 was a highly impractical car for that! So it got sold. A fella who had had a narrow escape with cancer and who had always wanted to have one bought it - he said he had learned from his fight with cancer that you have to do the things you want NOW, and not leave things til it's too late, so we were very happy it was going to a home where it would be very appreciated and we sold it to him for a very fair price. It was well looked after and well maintained (fully rebuilt engine, bare metal respray, aftermarket wheels, aftermarket suspension, refurbished interior, great stereo, lots of other little mods here and there) and had no rust, no real problems, and ran very well so he got a great little car. That was 15 years ago. I sometimes wonder if he's still with us and I hope he is still enjoying his little X19.
Fantastic, I used to have the normal little 1.5 litre, slow but huge fun. I think it was Dallara who built the original ones but the car went out of production so development became difficult. Just found the channel. Looks great. I will be indulging during our Melbourne Aust. lockdown. Ta.
The biggest reveal by far: that huge grin on your face from start to end. And thanks for the "info nugget" about the large carbs being responsible for lumpy running until you get the revs up. That answers a niggling problem I've had on an engine that's had four motorbike carbs fitted instead of the original twin-coke Weber.
My wife owned one of these road cars, I always thought it would have made an excellent rally car, the handling was superb. I'm glad to see someone actually did that. I wonder do you know anything of the car's history? Was it successful back in it's Group 4 days? Is is competitive in historic rallies today? I would have thought a well driven X19 would make a very quick and nimble rally car, so basically ideal for that purpose. Cheers.
Nice vid, and you look like you loved it from the smile on your face, intro was a bit obvious lack of knowledge, I have owned four and yes they rust, but.....so does every car from that era, including from vw etc, the X1/9 is so strong and tough, having been hit when I had one and put through 3 trees, cutting them off at their stumps i can tell you they are strong!
This particular car was built in Italy for rally and hillclimb events, shipped to the UK and made road legal, before being sold by DM Historics to a guy in Australia, who plans to use it competitively! With any luck, he'll drive a bit quicker than Joe did...
Shame it isn't the real deal, just a replica.... the originals were destroyed (with a couple snuck out and living in USA), still a delightful car. I used to race a replica of the Dallara conversion packing 6 times the bhp of the original 1300 and it was utterly insane! Everything said about being alert, agile, demanding and utterly full-on and draining is completely true. Piece of trivia - the X1/9 has the second shortest wheelbase of a mid-engined production car, bettered only by its older sibling the Lancia Stratos... snap oversteer anyone?
