Entertaining Imported Vehicle and Toys Spells FIAT

In 1979, Danny O’Donnell bought his initially Fiat 124, a 1973 product he noticed sitting on the side of the road with a For Sale indication in the windshield. “The vehicle didn’t run, it was kind of banged up, it experienced a gazillion miles, and the inside was a minor ratty,” he says. At the time, O’Donnell labored at an car components retailer in Connecticut that experienced a device shop, and he rebuilt the motor there. He then purchased a 2nd areas car or truck for its cleanse inside and a 3rd for its convertible prime. With a single solid driver and two partially stripped ones, he did what any intelligent autophile would do: started off promoting sections from the areas cars.

It did not acquire O’Donnell extensive to rid himself of his inventory. “Back in the working day, when you went to Fiat to get some thing, if it was not oil filters or air filters, it took a minimum amount of 30 times or 60 days to ship,” he claims. “Men and women ended up buying sections from me remaining and proper.” He bought a couple of more sections automobiles and parted those out, repeating the process for 8 many years before finally likely all in. “In 1986, I had a chance to go to California to invest in out a dealer’s offer,” he says. “I shipped 51 skids of Fiat components again and explained, I guess I’m in the Fiat sections company now.” He obtained a indicator and a retail license in Could 1987.

O’Donnell has considering the fact that acquired out dozens of failed Fiat dealers and fix shops. At his shop, Exciting Imported Car and Toys in Vernon, Connecticut, he maintains 1 of the biggest stockpiles of classic new-aged-stock Fiat Spider components in the United States. “I employed to explain to people today that we could lock the door listed here for a week and develop a brand name-new Spider, with all the sheetmetal, engine bits, and interior,” he says.

O’Donnell won’t exactly have to have a new Spider. In the 4 many years due to the fact his initial Fiat invest in, he estimates that he has owned “all-around 400” Fiats, quite a few of them 124s, but a smattering of some others as properly, like some rarities. He at this time has 76 cars and trucks in his collection, a hoard that contains a trio of 1966 Impala Super Sport convertibles he’s experienced since the ’70s, but he is largely focused on Italian iron (or alloy). “I have a 1958 Multipla,” he claimed. “I have a Fiat Moretti Sportiva. I have a Double Bubble 1958 750 Zagato. I have 3 1983 Pininfarina Spiders from when Pininfarina took in excess of output of all those automobiles. I have 4 1985-½ Pininfarina Spiders, which are actually scarce, final-12 months up-to-date cars and trucks. I have a 1959 U.S.-spec 500, one particular of a handful of that have been imported listed here with the huge ‘bug eye’ headlights and even bigger bumpers. And I have a several Abarths from the ’50s.” He mentions a Maserati manufacturing facility prototype and a Lancia Scorpion from the manufacturing unit race group.

I met O’Donnell due to the fact my beloved 1979 Spider needed its transmission rebuilt. I fell in adore with that motor vehicle as a kid, and bought 1 drunk on a vacation house from China as an adult. I ended up visiting O’Donnell’s shop, shopping for quite a few hundred dollars’ value of other areas for my mechanic to install, and wandering through the towering shelves of gaskets, gauges, seatbelts, steering wheels, bezels, bushings, mirrors, and miscellany. I asked whether or not these stacks were being arranged in accordance to some obscure procedure to which only O’Donnell realized the vital. He laughed. “It is all in Fiat aspect stock numerical order.”

A store and assortment like this, a 1-guy procedure, a labor of like for a beloved marque and make, raises the question of succession. O’Donnell isn’t married and has no youngsters. But he has a prepare of sorts. “I’m guessing it is really likely to go by the wayside soon after me,” he claims. “But I have an agreement with the large male. I’m going to get the job done every single day, and then one day I’m just heading to die. And when I die—I presently talked to him—he’s received a convertible up there for me, and I get to push.”

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