The first question you will need to answer is: am I looking for a classic Fiat 500 for sale to be restored or a classic Fiat 500 for sale already restored and ready to use?
Let’s start with the first option: A classic Fiat 500 for sale to be restored.
Keep in mind one important thing: you will probably be led to think that buying a classic Fiat 500 that needs restoration will save you money, because you can buy the classic fiat 500 at a lower price and do part of the work yourself. same.
Now, unless you are an expert mechanic or an expert coachbuilder, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I must warn you about the risk of finding yourself in the unpleasant situation in which you have started to disassemble your classic Fiat 500, only to then realize that the work is too demanding for a simple hobbyist.
At this point you will need to turn to professionals. These professionals will have to restore a car in poor condition, and their work obviously comes at a cost. You risk having to spend a lot of money, wait many months, if not years, and then, now demotivated, you’ll decide to sell off your Fiat 500.
I’ve bought many Fiat 500s with most of the bodywork already done. Those who sold them did it out of exasperation. There were those who, after years of waiting, found themselves with a car still disassembled and, to prevent the mechanic or body shop from reselling the parts, they went to recover it.
There were also those who believed that they would be able to restore the Fiat 500 for a few euros, but then in the end they spent 3 or 4 times as much as they had budgeted, and the classic Fiat 500 was not finished yet.
So, if you want to buy a vintage Fiat 500 to restore, my advice is to do it only if you already know where to get your hands, or make sure you have a mechanic or body shop friend who can follow you during the work.
You can also decide to contact a company that deals directly with restorations. They will most likely find a suitable classic Fiat 500 for the purpose, and restore it for you. If you have it done in Italy, the work will certainly cost you less. However, you will have to estimate that a personalized restoration involves a fairly high cost and moreover, you will have to wait many months before receiving your classic Fiat 500.
My advice is to distrust those who promise you too short delivery times. A well-done restoration, which also includes sandblasting the body, requires many months of work. If they promise to do it in 2 or 3 months. there are 2 cases:
- either they won’t do a good job, simply going to restore the car without worrying about sandblasting the body, with the risk of not discovering any hidden problems.
- or they won’t be able to meet the promised times, especially if they have many cars in the works.
Second option: A classic Fiat 500 for sale already restored or ready to use.
If, on the other hand, you are not sure of the quality of the work and you don’t want to wait many months before you can have the coveted classic Fiat 500 in your hands, the best option will be to buy a ready-made car.
In this case, in my opinion, the advantages will be many.
The first advantage, as already mentioned above, is that you won’t have to wait long before receiving your classic Fiat 500 at home.
the second advantage is that you will have the possibility to check the condition of the car before sending your money. By taking a low-cost flight, you could spend a weekend in Italy and, at the same time, go and view the car. Or you can choose our purchase consultancy service, and we’ll go and view the car, providing you with hundreds of photos and a detailed report.
A third advantage could be the fact that, among the ready-made classic Fiat 500s for sale, there are still original pieces, thus having the possibility of buying a nice collector’s item, even if with some signs of the time.
You could also search among the already restored Fiat 500s.
You can get some great deals this way. In fact, it is not uncommon to find classic Fiat 500s that have been very well restored, and offered for sale at prices much lower than the costs incurred for the restoration. In the latter case it would be like winning the lottery: You buy a Fiat 500 in excellent condition (restored), at a cheaper price than a commissioned restoration, and you don’t even have to wait for the biblical restoration times.
Where to buy a Fiat 500 (auction – professional seller – private)
There are various possibilities for buying your Fiat 500. You can buy it at an auction (online or live), from a professional dealer or from a private individual.
Auctions
This is definitely the most exciting way to buy your classic Fiat 500, whether it’s online auctions or live auctions. But be careful, most auction houses charge a percentage on top of the auction clearing price. This means that if you bid 8,000 euros and win the auction, you will have to add the percentage that you will have to pay to the auction house to this amount. Check this information carefully before placing a bid.
If you decide to buy your classic Fiat 500 at auction, set yourself a maximum price. I know, there’s nothing worse than having your bid outbid by a higher bid, but watch out! Caught in euphoria or the desire to win, you might get carried away and keep raising. Do not do it! Set yourself a maximum price, beyond which you will leave the victory to your opponent. You won’t have won the auction, but you won’t have lost too much money either.
If you participate in a live auction, find your Fiat 500 in the catalog and then, since the auction houses leave the cars in the car park for interested parties to view, go look for it in the car park and check that the car is in good condition.
If, on the other hand, you participate in an online auction, carefully check the photos in the advertisement, if you have the opportunity, ask the seller to send you more photos or make a video call, or go and see it in person. As I told you a few lines ago, you can always take advantage of our consultancy service. In any case, remember that if the car does not correspond to the description, you will be able to request a refund and the seller will have to collect the car at his expense (Before bidding, check that the costs of returning the car are not borne by the seller). ‘buyer)
Among the auction sites, I suggest a few below:
Professional sellers
If instead you opt for a professional seller, you will be guaranteed to have dealing with professional operators, who will provide you with support, both during the purchase and after the purchase. Make sure you buy the Fiat 500 from a classic car dealer and not just a car salesman. Often the latter are unable to give a real value to the car which they therefore often put up for sale at excessively high prices, or in any case not in line with the real value of the classic Fiat 500 in question.
Obviously you will forgive me if I advise you to start your search from my website www.garagefiat500.com, hoping that you will find the classic Fiat 500 for sale of your dreams.
Private (newspaper ads, classifieds websites, word of mouth, clubs)
If you decide to buy a Fiat 500 from a private individual, the search can be done in the newspapers that give space to ads. By now there are fewer and fewer people who put their cars up for sale in newspaper ads, but often the cars put up for sale in these magazines never get on the internet, mainly due to the fact that, in my opinion, those who still use ads on the newspaper to sell his car, he is not familiar with the technology. And then maybe it will be easier to find a good deal and you won’t have too much competition either.
You can also use word of mouth. Ask your mechanic, your auto parts dealer or the car practice agency to let you know in case they hear from someone who wants to sell their Fiat 500. If you can intercept the seller at this stage, you will have no competitors and, you may be able to to get a good price.
Same thing if you are a member of a classic car club. Tell the secretariat and subscribers you know that you are looking for a Fiat 500. Perhaps there is someone among their subscribers who is selling.
The most common way to find a Fiat 500 is to search various classifieds websites. There are a myriad of sites where you can find Fiat 500s for sale. And there are tons of ads. My advice is always to search on Italian sites, so as to be sure of finding a classic Fiat 500 for sale in Italy, in order to have a more advantageous price.
A technique that I often use is to look for ads that are badly made and, consequently, have been online for a long time. Start your search from the classifieds at the bottom of the list. If the ad has bad photos, if the car is all covered in dust and other objects, or even worse, there is no photo at all, you can be sure that even after a year that classic Fiat 500 will still be for sale. This could be to your advantage, for the simple fact that the seller probably hasn’t received many phone calls and therefore, in order to sell his classic Fiat 500, is more inclined to go down with the price. Obviously, once you have viewed the Fiat 500, the car must be in line with what you were looking for.
Another method, in order to get a good price, is to print the ad, being careful to also take the telephone number, and then wait for the ad to be removed from the website. As soon as you see that particular ad is no longer online, call the seller. There could be 2 cases:
- Either the seller has removed the advertisement because he has sold his classic Fiat 500
- or, and this is the case that interests us, the advertisement has expired and has been automatically removed from the system. If you find yourself in this second case, you may be able to get a good price.
Here are some websites to find your classic Fiat 500 for sale in Italy:
- www.subito.it
- www.autoscout24.it
- www.autobelle.it
- www.garagefiat500.com (on our website you can find both our classic Fiat 500s for sale in sale, both classic Fiat 500 sold by private individuals. You will have more choice and you can write to us to ask for advice)
I hope this mini guide has been useful for you. Now you just have to go and view your next Fiat 500 and decide whether to take it home, or continue the search.
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Thank you and see you in the next article.
Gabriele