I do agree, and i am one that brought a coupe 20vt originally on the "i want a fast car for not alot of money idea" spent £2000 on mine, had 105k on clock, had a few tatty bits, and some running problems, when i got them sorted i fell in love with the car, i love the power delivery, mine is lightly modded, running about 250 or just under. I have spent a bit of money on mine and still have the idea of spending more, so what was a stop gap car for me has turned into an obsession for these styled cars, i dont want any other car (just maybe a newer one, or a plus or LE) Ive got the car looking how i want, standard wheels, piu front bumper, zender side skirts and zender rear lip, and i love it.

If people want to break there cars im ok with that and its totally up to the owner, like a few have said, its gives us some second hand parts, plus like some others said, it means theres less on the road

for what its worth, ive only owned my coop for a matter of months. i,m an old git so it just seems like yesterday when they were launched anyway to me it was a car that i thought to myself wow this is the sort of thing i want, but obviously back then i couldn't afford. to get to the point my father died last summer & i was left some money, anyway my father was bit of a petrol head himself,it took some time for me to choose a vehicle. i could ve had anything i wanted [well almost] slight exaggeration basically i trawled
for the car of my dreams & there it was a coop, a good one up here in my neck of the woods thing is i could ve had a brand new car if i wanted, my wife was soo surprised when i went for the coop, but everyone loves it.when i went to pick up the coop my family had a welcoming party waiting for me they are very rare up here.the car didnt cost a fortune but the running costs were going to be a different story, i knew that. my father would ve been tickled... my point is i cant believe i now own a coop & i hope to own it for a long time

Jim

I hope to see you about these parts for many years to come

Bob

lusted after them when they were new, always kept an eye on the clssifieds in the vain hope one would come up...pounced when mine did.....paid £1500...spent just over a grand.....love the car...sure i thought of getting rid after i had spent the money cos ithought...aarghh..i aint gonna get this investment back....but to me, the mgb analogy is a good un....my coupe, to me, is as much of a collectors car as any old brit or italian iron..it is a specialist, virtually handmade 150mph italian car.....buying one was a cumlmination of a dream for me, and yes, i have had to review the way i think about used cars with it....(owned LOADS and always tried to break even or make a profit....)..but bottom line is, i NEED a car..i own more than one....i will always be unfaithful to my sultry italian temptress....but il always come back to her......and if it costs me a few quid to do so over the years, c'est la vie......i feel like im having the last laugh every time i slip behind the wheel of this gorgeous piece of italian coachbuilt sculpture.....it is my belief that in ten, fifteen, twenty years, these cars will be spoken of in the pages of classic and sportscar and the like with the same hallowed tones reserved for alfa montreals or citroen sm these days....a junior league supercar made by an 'ordinary' company.....

Are you frickin kidding? There are enough coupes which get written off to provide us all with parts for years and years without having to hack to death the perfectly good cars as well!! The coupe just seems to breed a following mindless chavs who buy them for the speed and power with no thought for how they are going to maintain and service them on their £70 a week dole money so that at the first sign of something going wrong with them, they hack them to bits because if some other idiot is going to give them £150 for the bonnet or £100 for the seats then they're bound to snap their hands off when they probably only paid £700 for the s**tbox in the first place?

Other coupe owners don't help the problem when at the first sign of somebody with a tuned coupe saying "oh I'm thinking about hacking my car because I can't sell it and it's been for sale for over a week now..." everybody's swarming round like vultures haggling for the fmic or alloy this, that or the other!

The coupe is an italian gt car! It's not about power it's about passion. The only people who buy coupes nowadays are max power t**ts who can't afford an evo or an RX7! Listen up good - the coupe is NEVER going to be an evo! It's fast, it has power but it handles like a bag of ferrets - but THATS not the point of owning it is it? It's beautiful, it's temperamental, it's Italian, it's passion get a f**king clue!

Recent case in point is the guy on here with a 16v n/a which broke and he came on here asking for advice on how to fix it. What's the first thing the forum suggested?? Thats right - "hack it to death and go out and buy a 20VT!!!" what kind of advice is that from what is supposed to be an enthusiasts club? 16v n/a, 16VT, 20v n/a 20VT - they are all FIAT COUPE'S and we should love them as such and try to keep as many on the roads as possible. That guy with the 16v n/a has got an immaculate specimin which is way too good to hack - a lot better than some of the s**tbox 20VT I saw at the recent Auto Italia event at Stanford Hall!!! He probably loves and cares for that car a lot more than some of the morons on here who runs their coupes into the ground and then are surprised when the engine blows! But hey, it's ok if your engine blows up isn't it? You can always chop the car up for panels and parts and then buy another s**tbox coupe for less than a grand and treat that exactly the same way - and hey, if we're really lucky, maybe we can erradicate all coupes soon!

Sorry for the rant but I'm sick of the mentality on here sometimes. The average age of the coop owner is early 20's and it really shows . . . .

But the 1 and only reson people Break "good" cars is that its the best way to get there money back, what ever you say the coupe parts are Hard to come by,

I have broken 2 coupe's so far a 20VT and a 16VT and they both have / will make more money that if they were good on the road cars, Both of them were the standard abused sacks of shite that you tend to get and the combination of poor paint and very light damage makes them worth a total of sod all as a whole car, Yet the selection of good used parts on the cars has kept some nicer ones on the road,

I do aggree with you a bit though, i currently have a rare Late ford capri 2.8i its even got 11 months mot on it and being a lover of capri's i would love to see someone sort the problems it has out and get it back on the road, but in the real world no one actualy wants it even for £900 its been for sale for a month, 2 of us have tryed to sell it, so tomorow it gets the Angle grinder taken to it and cut up and striped in to bits, Harsh and a waste of a good old skool for Yes but there is nothing else that i can do with it and the demand for parts means the car is worth £2000 in parts and i know everything will sell, it should even get its last five min of fame arround the banger track if its lucky!

And just to agree with you some more Anyone who is so thick they cant check / change the oil on a turbochrged car and moans it blows up needs shooting!

And no i dont need a lecture that its bad to strip rare old fords!

And even more of a point i have a very good 16VT coupe on E-bay at the moment, its been on there 5 days and its still only at £50 over the price its worth if driven straight in to the scrap yard! I could have broken that one but i chose not to but its not looking good for it at the moment!

You have to face up to the fact for the next couple of years the Coupe is at its Bottom point Value wise give it a year or 2 and the values will start to shoot back up as there wont be all the £500 dogs about there are at the moment!

Stan would be flattered you think he is that age.... JimO too

^ He's right, I am flattered!

I agree it's very sad to see perfectly good coupés getting scrapped for financial reasons only but that's because the car hasn't reached classic status yet. At the rate of hacking and crashing I'd reckon on five years at most before active membership on this forum reaches 2-300 with a few hundred more lurkers and at that point we'll be beginning to think it's close to classic status.

When the car hits classic status you'll know because owners will realise they don't actually own the car they are merely the caretaker......

It will get to a point where the demand for spares tails off. This is because there will be so few cars left for the spares to fit onto.
The Coupe Does seem to becoming a target for Chavs though, who have moved on From Nissan 200sx's and Rover Coupe's. It doesn't do the image a lot of good.
I quite often see tatty coupe's driven by such oiks.

What she said... but it really is a very simple decision; if it makes more broken than repaired, break it.

Which is why I spent twice the market value of mine putting it back together after it got back-ended.

As my friend David Friedman - a free-market economic theorist of high order - might say: intangibles still have value. But the point is that while to many of the older members here - perhaps brought up in a culture which was more 'make do and mend' than 'it's broken, chuck it and buy another' - the coupe is intrinsically valuable in and of itself, to others it's just another cheap motor.

p.s. I'm really in my early twenties. Anyone who thought I was in my late forties when they met me at Stanford last month was obviously deceived by my injury-required walking stick. Yep.

The thing is though Adam - when someone breaks a car, it's usually a tuned up coop who's engine has gone bang or someone with a modded car who just wants to break it cos they can't sell it whole right? Whats the first and easiest parts on the car to sell?? The performance parts and accessories like after market alloys, fmic, induction kits, pistons, lowered springs, after market kits etc etc. These are not necessary to keep the coupe on the road are they? If you've got a mint condition coop and the rear brake callipers or the shock absorbers go - you're not going to buy those second hand off some old s**tbox are you? You buy new ones?

I totally agree with you though - some cars need to be sacrificed for things like panels etc I'm just disagreeing with the mentality of some coop owners who would break a perfectly good coop with absolutely no second thought!

Also - how can we say that coop parts are hard to come by when not so long ago Carlt was practically giving parts away as he was inundated with them!! He even had to throw a load of 16v doors in the skip!

Thats a bit stereotypical!

I'm 26, but take great care of my cars! I would have thought my bill in 2 1/2 years of coupe ownership is easily £10k.

It's like me saying women don't have clue about cars and shouldn't be on the road. But that is a whole different topic

Proves my point really

yep...well said eldinho

Not really doing yourselves any favours here are you?

For the record - I'm 28 myself but it's more to do with your mentality than your actual age that I was getting at-you just exhibited yours perfectly.

the same thing happened with rs turbo's a few years ago, there were so many shite boxes on the road you only got twats turning up saying "that ones only 2 grand mate" when you tried to sell yours! now they have all gone to the scrappy the solid ones have gone back up in value

Strange - as I don't think that the majority of the forum posts are written by young max power chav types. Infact there are numerous comments from newbies commenting on how civilised it is in comparison to some other sites.

Most of the people on here are genuinely enthusiatic about their cars and would hate to break them unless it was really nessesary. I would never break a car myself, and whilst it upsets me a bit to see a Coupe or an Alfa in a scrappy, I will take some good bits from it if I can.

I am 30 years old BTW..

Personaly the Modified bits are Just E-bay fodder, chuck them on some one will buy them, Personaly any car i break i will 110% get Every good part i can off, this normaly goes to the point (as with the capri i am doing today and tomorow) of actualy saving Screws and trim clips some things that are inposible to get hold of new, If its not broke it dont get chucked, and 99% of the time i will sell everything that i remove, the capri is even having the Transmition tunnle taken out for a Mk1 Tincorner,

The coupes i have broken have been dam near the same, even my dad has had parts for his 16VT just silly stuff like carpet press studs and a good boot liner, it's all stuff you cant get any other way, the 16VT i have on ebay has been treated to lil bits it needed thanks to the other, and as for Standard parts not selling they do, Shocks, Springs, Radius arms, Front hubs Turbo's, Calipers ect all go well a pair of 20VT calipers is near on £500 new, and some one tonight has just bought the ECU and Key set to get his 20VT back on the road

In a way the only way a car can Ever become a Cult Classic car is by 95% of them being striped raced destroyed, that way they become so hard to get any loved ones are bought by 100% enthusiasts and treated nicely,

Just look at the 205 GTI for example for the last 5-10 years its been looked at as a Cheap bit of throw away fun costing £300-£600 and thats the point the coupe is at but now Good unmodified ones are changing hands for more than £4000 even the 1.6's

I don't think it'll ever be a true classic tbh.

whereas i think its a bona fide classic right now..handbuilt italian coupe , what more do ya want...??..

I bought the coupe as its one of the most beautiful and distinctive cars around. Fills me with joy whenever I see it. Can't put a price on that.
Its a bonus that its fast and cheap to buy (and fairly cheap to run if a little care it taken).

I has all the hallmarks of a classic: sporty, distinctive and has a very strong group of enthusiasts. Already is one to me. Far more of a classic than my 1995 Audi A4!



Haven't seen any of these 'chavvy' knackered coupes around, so perhaps don't perceive the coupe as others might. Further off topic, I think that the use of 'chav' to denigrate a certain social group is getting a bit over-used. But anyway...

[quote=VerticalCat]I bought the coupe as its one of the most beautiful and distinctive cars around. Fills me with joy whenever I see it. Can't put a price on that.
Its a bonus that its fast and cheap to buy (and fairly cheap to run if a little care it taken).

I has all the hallmarks of a classic: sporty, distinctive and has a very strong group of enthusiasts. Already is one to me. Far more of a classic than my 1995 Audi A
yes i agree but some might say its a bit more expensie to run i also ptretty much agree with kenno about this sites atitude is a bit more mature compared to others, appart from anything else most young team can hardly afford insurance for their chaved up small fiat or the likes so theres no way they could afford anything to do with a coop tad on harsh side i hear some say but true nevertheless

Who says that half of them even bother with insurance anyway?

Besides, you've just helped me make my point haven't you? The people who buy coupes because they are fast and you can pick one up for pennies at the moment, do so with no knowledge that they take a lot of money to run, service and insure. Therefore, when an expensive thing breaks on them (like the engine blowing because it has not been properly maintained) the first thing they think of for making their money back on the car, is to break it not fix it.

The coupe has the makings of a true italian classic - I'm starting to agree with Adam in that the only way these cars can become true classics is to let all the crappy ones die off. I don't think this is right but I'm starting to think it's inevitable.

Why don't we learn from past mistakes? Look at the Lancia Beta Coupes, or the MK1 Escort or Austin Healy 3000's - people are dragging these cars out of the scrapyard to fix up costing thousands! Why not try and save coops now while it's not too bad to fix them up?

Save Our Coupes!!

So it's OK for you to stereotype men in their early twenties, yet it's not OK for Eldinho to stereotype women drivers?

And no before you start I'm not against women drivers at all.

Out of curiosity, what do you class as a young chav then? Someone who, perhaps, puts aftermarket wheels on their 'ride' and/or a body kit?

LOL - I knew it wouldn't be long before some PERSON came up with this argument! You can't expect to argue against the stereotype of not being an immature young person and then in the next breath come out with some stupid childish stereotype of your own Btw - I never said anything about it being a predominantly male thing did I? I said it sometimes shows how young coop owners are and the level of immaturity shown sometimes.



I don't really care if you do have a problem with women drivers. Some women drivers are crap same as some male drivers are crap same as some coop owners are immature. It's when you apply that same statement to the wider range of people in the group that it becomes a stereotype - which I haven't.



The people I'm referring to are the ones who buy a coupe cos they're cheap and fast not because they love coupes. Who then proceed to extort as much power as they can from them without a thought for tuning them within their limitations, rag them into the ground and who are then surprised when the engine blows! Then they don't even consider the possibility of rebuilding the engine because they didn't have enough money to properly maintain the car in the first place and just hack it. I'm not talking about modding your car at all. Thats up to you. As you can see, mine has external mods (which I've no doubt is the flimsy argument you were trying to make) about a million other coupe owners have done the same because we want ours to be individualistic - some people don't agree and want to keep theirs standard. Some people want to tune their cars to get more power and performance - again no problem with that as long as you know what you are doing. It's the idiots who are just intent on destroying their coops by instilling power in it that it just wasn't designed to be able to handle without a thought for whether the chassis or brakes can withstand it. The one's who stick all the performance parts on the car like bigger turbos, induction kits and chips without first thinking about uprated the basic components of the internal engine first!! The ones who's first thought when they buy a coop is "is it as fast as such and such"!


I can't really believe that so many people are having a go at me personally? Do you really want to see more coupes get hacked to death?

bottom line , if someone puts there hard earned into a car, its theirs regardless of what others think..i dont like modded coupes,or many modded cars..but im not against it,....each to their own....im a classic car fan and youd be amazed how much debate like this goes on on classic forums...people moaningabout others chopping up classics, modding them, over restoring them, whatever.....

...my attitude...so what??...i may see hundreds of different cars today..i wont like many of them..presumeably tho their owners do..im cool with that...althought i love my coop dearly, its MINE.....if i wanna go take a chainsaw to it, ot paint it pink with a silver roof, its MINE to do with what i please.....

if someone cant sell their coop and its worth more in bits, and is easier to sell as parts....they may NEED the cash....im lucky just now...i have a good job, i have a few cars, i dont NEED money from selling my car...but if circumstances were different and i had no option, if i NEEDED cash desperately and it was the only way, it would be with a heavy heart, but the still saw would be out......


so get chopping those coops...it will make mine rarer..haha

And for the price of a new kia picanto you can buy a good low miler which although very rare can still be found now...They wont be around when you re ready to break what you re driving daily now !!!!

Sorry, where is my stereotype argument here






Which says something doesn't it?

Good editing to.