The $2 Billion Bargain.(Column)

Byline: Kevin A. Wilson

Boy, did General Motors dodge a bullet. For a meager $2 billion, it bought its way out of a deal that could have forced it to assume control of Fiat Auto, with all its debts and other encumbrances. One of those burdens only the automotive cognoscenti will understand: GM was in danger of inheriting the Fiat X1/9 enthusiasts. (There, I've done it. I said "X1/9.'' Batten down the mailboxes, we've got INCOMING!)

Even a casual observer can see that GM-busy shrinking its own European arm-doesn't need Fiat's woes. While $2 billion might look like a lot, it's not a fifth of the red ink at Fiat Auto, where Luca di Montezemolo aims to turn things around. If the chairman pulls it off after the magic he performed at Ferrari, his name might supplant that of Renault/Nissan's Carlos Ghosn as the preeminent fixer in the game. Picking GM's pocket for two big bills will help his cause.

After the Geneva show, though, even di Montezemolo must be scratching his head over the X1/9 people. Since there are licensed drivers born after the X1/9 went out of production in 1988, let's pause here for explanation. In 1974 Fiat replaced its rust-prone, tiny, rear-engine 850 Spider with a rust-prone, tiny, doorstop-shaped, Targa-style sports car called X1/9. Expediently, a transverse-engine/transaxle unit from a mass-market front-drive car was mounted in the middle to give Giuseppe Schmo the same mid-engine handling balance as had once been available only to those who could afford exotics like the Lamborghini Miura. With its MR2, Toyota, for one, has since used the same idea to better effect.

As an idea, the X1/9 was a landmark. As a car, it had shortcomings. Let's just say there was simply too much truth in the tired old "Fix It Again, Tony'' joke. Passion for the idea of the X1/9 seems to overpower experience with the reality of the car, however, such that X1/9 fans long ago transgressed the wafer-thin boundary between marque club and religious cult.

Case in point: Students from a design ...