Punto GT

[charged]

Here’s my little Punto Gt, it’s a recent acquisition I bought it blind and I had to send my transporter guy to pick it up from the other end of the country because it was the day after lockdown. I was able to get comprehensive walk around (and underneath!) videos before committing. Thankfully it’s a a good one.. pretty much standard, springs and a Bailey dumpvalve which is an absolute master stroke.
I’ve never had one before but I’ve had five Mk2 Uno Turbo’s which share the same engine. I love it, it’s just fun fun fun. It sounds great and goes well.

My other toy is a Mk1 Mr2 with 400bhp and it’s not had a look in since the Fiat arrived so that speaks volumes. Cracking little car!

 

[Scrooge]

f**king love it. I had a 1.6 8v with the factory fitted Abarth kit. It lasted 2 weeks before I put the 1.4 turbo lump in, had a seb chip and was around 200hp

I never upgrade anything else so solid non vented discs up front, zero abs and no power steering. Any driving talent I now have is because of that car lol

 

[Jekyll]

@dann2707

 

[Jekyll]

Love it mate.

 

[Daz...]

That’s a proper hot hatch 😎

 

[Alastair.]

Always liked these.

 

[_Tom]

love it! One of the cars I always wanted in my youth and they were fairly rare even then. Looks tidy!

My mate had a few. I even test drove one with the cash in my pocket but it was smoking like hell so walked away. 😂

I always wanted one in the bright blue they did.

 

[dann2707]

What a beast! Love it.

Pics of the mr2 too, I've just finished building a k20 mr2 (albeit the girly mk3). Threads in this section

 

[imprezaworks]

Used to love these. Worked in a place that sold puntos. One I had as a company car iirc was like a 1.2 but with higher bhp. Went well lol.

 

[charltjr]

Owned a 1.2 SX 75 back in the day. Good cars, s**t dealers..... #Fiat

Amazed to see a GT in decent shape, finding a mk1 Punto at all is an achievement these days.

 

[massiveCoRbyn]

Love it. Always had a soft spot for these. My best mate's parents had a couple of cooking ones as family cars. The second one was on about 150k when the odometer broke, and it still kept going for a couple of years. The dealer always joked about buying it back and putting it on display in the showroom as proof of how reliable they were.

A mate at college had a yellow GT briefly. It was a lovely thing. Can't remember the last time I saw a Punto of any kind. Can't be many left of either generation now.

 

[Philip.]

Always loved them but was scared shitless at the prospect of buying a Fiat 😂

A lad at the local cruise drove a yellow one into a bollard once after losing control in the car park.

 

[Nick_Leeds]

Love it

 

[-Rob]

Man, this takes me back to my first car a 1994 75SX 5 door in extremely rare Verde Green.

Never been in a GT, but I bet it’s a hoot! (When they work)

 

[Clio_fool]

I had a test drive lined up for one of these back in the day but the 106 GTI got my money before I even saw the fiat. Cool little car and rare these days too.
I did own a Bravo HGT (🤦‍♂️) for a while but all it had going for it was the 5pot noise, the rest of it was s**t. My dad bought a barchetta when they moved to Spain but sold it as he said he felt like he was back at work fixing it all the time🤣🤣.

 

[imprezaworks]

Fix It And Try again.

 

[yeecup]

I always had a soft spot for these back when they were new, however by all accounts they just weren't very good compared to the alternatives that were available. a girl at work had a punto of the same era, not a turbo, and it went wrong every other week, fell to bits. there was a blue punto gt turbo that drove around Edinburgh back then, had the twin centre exit upswept exhaust on it which I think was magnex, did sound good and I sort of wanted one. they are pretty retro cool now tbh.

 

[Danith]

Takes me back. It was a toss up between a Clio 1.8 16v and a Punto GT when I was 21. Ended up getting the Clio (obvs). Great colour.

 

[dann2707]

Were/are you on punto sport. Net if I remember it's website name correctly?
That was the site to be on for tuning which was similar to this site in terms of how busy it was! Fiatforum was for old people and generally very strange folk.

It seemed to be that everyone started doing the 2 litre 20v conversion from the fiat coupe at one point too. Awesome times

This was my "rep" back in 2009.

 

[charged]

Never been in a GT, but I bet it’s a hoot! (When they work)

They're fairly reliable, the engines are strong... one of my Old Uno Turbos had 150K on the clck and was running over a bar of boost through a T25. It went well!

I was constantly popping drive shafts.. and the rings went it one but they really could take an awful lot of abuse.

 

[charged]

Were/are you on punto sport. Net if I remember it's website name correctly?
That was the site to be on for tuning which was similar to this site in terms of how busy it was! Fiatforum was for old people and generally very strange folk.

I'm on Turbo Collective (Facebook only now) which is a very long running Uno Turbo resource/community. Everything I need is there to be fair.

I'm tempted to give this one a bit more boost

 

[-Rob]

They're fairly reliable, the engines are strong... one of my Old Uno Turbos had 150K on the clck and was running over a bar of boost through a T25. It went well!

I was constantly popping drive shafts.. and the rings went it one but they really could take an awful lot of abuse.

That’s made me want one even more. Epic!

 

[Martin_172]

I remember my mate having an uno turbo, big intercooler from an iveco truck on the front, bleed valve to up the boost etc, back when people tuned for just a few quid!

Got it running and hadn't outt the interior back in so we took it a blast down the road sitting on a big plastic oil drum each 😂😂

 

[Akay]

Wow, love these, I had a Mk1 55SX in the same colour as my first car! They used to be all over the place and as somebody said above, seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth these days! Scrappage scheme got a load I bet.

@dann2707 I can remember you getting slated on Fiat Forum back in the day! CarbineFTW. I remember you getting a Mk4 Golf in green afterward I think?

 

[Clio_fool]

Fix It And Try again.

Fix It Again Tomorrow was the official blurb I recall. 😂

 

[dann2707]

Wow, love these, I had a Mk1 55SX in the same colour as my first car! They used to be all over the place and as somebody said above, seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth these days! Scrappage scheme got a load I bet.

@dann2707 I can remember you getting slated on Fiat Forum back in the day! CarbineFTW. I remember you getting a Mk4 Golf in green afterward I think?

Yeah if you go on my thread and underneath my title i'm banned. They were a strange bunch.
The highlight for me was going to a fiat forum meet and 10 of us went to KFC afterwards, because one of the guys was shall we say "chunky", he basically ran out of his car to get into KFC before any of us could get up and order. Because he was so excited he forgot to close his door and left it wide open whilst we were all in KFC.
When me and my mate Matty left before everyone else we went to my car and saw his door was wide open, we ran inside to let him know thinking that someone might have broke into his car etc he then accused me and Matty of doing it. It was absolutely unbelievable. They are proper wronguns on that forum I swear.

 

[Cookson]

Fix It Again Tomorrow was the official blurb I recall. 😂

Faster In A Taxi

I wonder how many people from here searched Punto Turbos on eBay after seeing this 😂

 

[Darren S]

Were/are you on punto sport. Net if I remember it's website name correctly?
That was the site to be on for tuning which was similar to this site in terms of how busy it was! Fiatforum was for old people and generally very strange folk.

It seemed to be that everyone started doing the 2 litre 20v conversion from the fiat coupe at one point too. Awesome times

This was my "rep" back in 2009.
View attachment 1471714

Must have been registered around the same time as mine with a reg like that - R720 KTD.

Had mine for 6.5 years and loved it. Common faults I had were alternators being baked with help from the turbo proximity and poor paintwork. Mine continued to bubble around the boot-lock despite having it repaired.

Ruined the handling (lol) of mine - not to mention battered the acceleration by switching the standard 14s to 17s. The larger Momos looked better and I kind of liked putting Italian wheels on an Italian car - but it definitely stunted its performance.

Would have it back tomorrow - if I didn't already know that its been written off and presumably crushed.

 

[Darren S]

love it! One of the cars I always wanted in my youth and they were fairly rare even then. Looks tidy!

My mate had a few. I even test drove one with the cash in my pocket but it was smoking like hell so walked away. 😂

I always wanted one in the bright blue they did.

Mine was officially the metallic turquoise colour, as below. Not a picture of my car, but you get the idea - in some lighting it looked like snot. As for calling it turquoise - it was definitely NOT blue of any form and a shade of green all day long.

Mine was R-reg and I got it on 3-year finance from the local Fiat dealership. They contacted me a year into the agreement and said that they had a T-reg (which surely must have been one of the last registered?) in that blue colour you mention. If I wanted to swap, I could bring my car in and exchange that for the blue one and simply extend the finance for a further year. Should have done that when I think about it - a one year hit for a two year younger car.

 

[Chrisgti6]

I used to have one of these, I treated myself for my 21st birthday (back in 2003!) It was a 95 M reg in the same colour as the OP.

SEB3 chip (back in the days of actually 'chipping' cars!), a random Saab intercooler and a manual boost controller turned it into a flying machine.

Love it - enjoy!

 

[Ant1]

Nice!

 

[Smiffyboy1990]

Looks a good one does that!

Can’t remember the last time i saw one!

Always had a soft spot for the Mk2 Punto, the 1.8 HGT version.

 

[Gaz_]

Yes!

Recently found my old photobucket account and had some old pics - this was circa 2001 I'd imagine

Had a few mods though its life - wore some OZ superleggeras at one time but preferred the little anthracite alloys it come with

Seb 2 adjustable bleed valve with various exhausts - they used to do a twin upswept magnex that come straight through the middle - I had that coupled with a decat Hella loud, with fames!

Ended up with a scorpion with hidden tailpipe in the end

Quick wee thing, local lad had a brand new FRS and it was good with that up to decent speeds

Handling was no where near the French though, this was a straights line machine. Loved that car, midnight blue 💙

Sold it for the 172 cup

Off to look at the classifieds......

 

[Darren S]

Yes!

Recently found my old photobucket account and had some old pics - this was circa 2001 I'd imagine

Had a few mods though its life - wore some OZ superleggeras at one time but preferred the little anthracite alloys it come with

Seb 2 adjustable bleed valve with various exhausts - they used to do a twin upswept magnex that come straight through the middle - I had that coupled with a decat Hella loud, with fames!

Ended up with a scorpion with hidden tailpipe in the end

Quick wee thing, local lad had a brand new FRS and it was good with that up to decent speeds

Handling was no where near the French though, this was a straights line machine. Loved that car, midnight blue 💙

Sold it for the 172 cup

Off to look at the classifieds......

I was going to tag you in yesterday, @Gaz_ ! GT Fwends!

Totally agree with you on the straight-line machine - they really didn't like corners in standard trim. And those 14s were a mixed blessing - spinning up well for acceleration, but also spinning up a little too well on anything but smooth and dry tarmac.

Was it something like Pirelli P6000's as standard fit for the tyres? Expensive due to the oddball size of the alloy but super-grippy for about the first two months of regular driving. After that it was open season, like you had the road-holding qualities of the finest pair of Chongling remoulds up front.

 

[dann2707]

Keep going to this thread for some nostalgia, it's really making me smile!

This was the time when it was all about santa pod and what your 1/4 mile times were. Not one person mentioned track days or anything! Crazy

 

[Gaz_]

Keep going to this thread for some nostalgia, it's really making me smile!

This was the time when it was all about santa pod and what your 1/4 mile times were. Not one person mentioned track days or anything! Crazy

You’re not wrong!


to be fair that little punto was a tough car, never let me down. Rear bushes were a common problem, but other than that and a clutch, it was fine, especially considering how much boost I had wound through it! 😂

 

[Gaz_]

I was going to tag you in yesterday, @Gaz_ ! GT Fwends!

Totally agree with you on the straight-line machine - they really didn't like corners in standard trim. And those 14s were a mixed blessing - spinning up well for acceleration, but also spinning up a little too well on anything but smooth and dry tarmac.

Was it something like Pirelli P6000's as standard fit for the tyres? Expensive due to the oddball size of the alloy but super-grippy for about the first two months of regular driving. After that it was open season, like you had the road-holding qualities of the finest pair of Chongling remoulds up front.

Aye those Pirelli’s lol! can’t remember what I ended up with tyre wise, probably some Yokos or something

The OZ’s looked mint, but I preferred its “handling” on the 14’s. I even had some white 15” compomotive MO’s on it at one point, need to see if I can find some photos of them, looked well tbf!

 

[Martin_172]

This was the time when it was all about santa pod and what your 1/4 mile times were. Not one person mentioned track days or anything! Crazy

Those were the days, I went to a revo day a few years back with my mate in his 500hp golf R, he sat on the line, on launch control, came off the brske, auto box done the changes and bragged all day he was the fastest car if the day. Changed days!!!

 

[Darren S]

Those were the days, I went to a revo day a few years back with my mate in his 500hp golf R, he sat on the line, on launch control, came off the brske, auto box done the changes and bragged all day he was the fastest car if the day. Changed days!!!

Really don't see the appeal in that. Sure, being pushed back into your seat from a standing start would be great fun - but it would get old quite quickly if everything is managed for you.

 

[Martin_172]

Really don't see the appeal in that. Sure, being pushed back into your seat from a standing start would be great fun - but it would get old quite quickly if everything is managed for you.

It's now just a big willy waving fest of who can spend the most