I owned a FIAT X1/9 back in the early 80’s.
Spent more time UNDER IT than IN IT!.....................
That was my friend's and my experience. He eventually had to practically give it away. Ironically, at least in this discussion he replaced it with a Dodge Dart with a slant 6 engine and drove that thing's wheels off with basically no maintenance at all. But even dressed up the Dart was not much of a chick magnet.
Great memories of the X-19 and the Spyder.
Beautiful styling but they seem to put little thought to maintenance and repairs. Changing something easy like a clutch master cylinder was a pain. And whatever you do, don’t let anything fall down those deep spark plug recesses into the cylinders!