At last I got it :-) The owener had the car for 12 or 13 years, let's see how long I'll have it :-)

The interior looked like he hadn't cleaned even once in those years. Lot's of sand and dirt on the floor, no rubber mats etc etc. But it doesn't smell like smoke, and allmost everything is on it's place, and the car really is just what I expected it to be. There is the centre console, better dash with better dials, a door on the glovebox and everything. Only the parcel shelf is missing, and the rear wiper is on the trunk. Propably because of the badly rusted backdoor. Even the seats are original, but they are in a desperate condition, and they have some teeny seatcovers on them.

The door panels are in a easily fixed condition, except that they have been raped to get some lame speakers installed. The previous owner has 'tuned' the door panels a little bit, and he has put some vinyl above the original panels. Originally there should be just plain steel.

In the interior the biggest problem is the dashboard. It has the same problem that everyone of these better dashes I've seen, it's badly cracked. I won't even try to find a new one, have to try to fix it somehow.

And what comes to the chassis, the car is almost as good as it could be after 25 years of constant use in your changing seasons and lot's of road salt in the wintertime. It's been repainted sometime (thank god, original color), but the finish is as good as it was propably on the 70's. Even the sportstripes are still there, propably an insurancecase? As you can see in the photos, of course the car isn't on a showroomcondition anymore, but I'm quite pleased. Only thing really missing on the outside, is the driver side mirror. It's been replaced with some other mirror. And as I wrote before, the rear wiper isn't there where it should be. The back door is 'a bit' rusty too, but as you propably know, it's normal for the Mk1.

Underneath I found a few weldings, but ofcourse that wasn't a surprise. And I found even the rear stabilizer bar just like I was hoping to :-) Everything looked quite fine until I found the biggest problem yet. The panhard rod mounting on the chassis seems to be in not-so-good condition. First it felt like a huge problem, but as you can see from the diary, I got the best possible part to fix it. So, that's nothing :-)

Brakes seem to work well, and that includes even the handbrake which is often a problem in Mk1. The shocks feel like they could be original from the 70's :-) The engine is where it should be, but I think it's done a bit more kilometers than designed. Feels like 0-100km/h takes 30 seconds or so, but I really don't care. A little surprise was finding a 1V Weber carburettor. There is something wrong with the alternator, the lights tend to blink a little when idle. I haven't measured the voltage yet, but something has to be done because I'm going to use it in the future too.

Something I don't understand, is the age of the car. The chassis number points to 5/76 (Registered '77 in Finland) but on a website I read that first Fiestas were delivered 11/76? Well, have to look at it later..

That's about it, go check the diary how things are going..

UPDATE 26.8.2003 I just visited this great site at http://www.fiesta1.de/ and browsed it for a while, went to check the links -page to see if I'm included. Well. I wasn't that much surprised that I was mentioned there but OMG OMG OMG what I found!! The author wrote on the description that my Mk1 was made in 5/76 like it is but .. Aah ooh GA!!! He/she also mentions that the production was started 11.5.1976!!! So. Ah. This has to be one the very first ever done!! Makes me feel orgastic :-DD