The Itsy Bitsy Spider crawled up the driveway....

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird; it's a plane; No, it's a piece of junk!
Well, the little 850 showed up here last Friday, after completing the long trip from Oregon riding on the top rack of the car carrier. Had to laugh as the driver rolled the car off the ramp, the silly thing is so narrow that it barely spanned the space between the two sides of the ramp on the truck; one mis-steer and it would have been *splat*!
Once off the truck, the driver said 'you can start it and move it'. Uhhhh, okay, well, let's see, I haven't driven one of these things in well over 40 years, and with my recently balky back, getting into the thing seemed to be problematic. 
Open the door, sit down on the seat (my God this thing is low to the ground!), and drag my legs in. Jeez,  forgot how small the pedals on this car are; the brake and clutch pedals are about the size of a Fig Newton; the gas pedal is the size of a Milky Way bar. Pull out the choke, crank it up, it fires and dies; repeat, it fires and dies again. Crank it 3 or 4 more times, finally get it to run! Found reverse on the first shot, unusual on this car, back it up, put it in first, gas it, and up the driveway it goes. Pull up to the fence, set the brake, shut it down, it's home.

You really need to see this thing up close and personal to realize exactly what a tiny little car it is. The top is just 4' high; side to side is less than five feet (59.5 inches), and front bumper to back bumper is just 12 feet. The side view gives you an idea of the size, and also how low the car is to the ground.

I was surprised that the hard top which came with the car is actually a genuine 'Fiat' branded top. It was manufactured by an aftermarket company, but has the Fiat emblem on it; in the world of Fiat 850's, that's a really rare thing.
For those of you who don't remember these little beasts, it is a rear engine car, similar to the old VW Bug, but with a water cooled engine that's only about half the size of the VW. It makes a huge 52 horsepower, a low amount even for back in 1969 (my '65 Barracuda makes 150+). Here's a shot of the power plant:
 

And, of course, nothing says 'old car' like the interior of a '69 850! Lap belts only, no shoulder belt, and they don't retract; when you unbuckle them, they just lie there on the floor. No radio in this car, it was an extra cost option in '69. No a/c, of course, no cruise control, no power steering or power brakes. No electric windows (and, of course, as noted in my last post, the cheap cable in the passenger door is busted), no 'frills' of any kind. But, it does have a good clutch and gearshift combination, a very tight turning radius, and due to the small wheelbase and light weight, it is very nimble on the road.

You can just see the tiny clutch pedal underneath the steering wheel in this photo. The floors are covered not with carpet, but with rubber mats - better in case you got caught in the rain with the top down. The steering wheel and dashboard are real wood, not wood look plastic.

So there it sits, the 'Itsy Bitsy' spider. I cleaned it up a bit over the weekend, and found all sorts of little issues with it - no big surprise - that are going to take some work. The electrical system, I fear, has serious issues; none of the lights on the driver side of the car work, and the instrument panel fuse keeps blowing. As noted, the passenger side window needs a new cable, the seats are shot, and the engine needs a major tune up at the very least.
That's the downside to picking up a car like this. The upside? Well, much of the work is stuff that I can do, and have done on my past 850's. I've ordered all the parts to tune it up, and Tommy is coming over on Saturday to help with that. I'll poke around the wiring a bit and see if I can't find what's wrong. If I can't, there are a couple of good electrical shops that can track that down for me. And overall, the body is solid, the chassis is pretty much rust free, and it shouldn't take too much to put it into decent 'weekend shape', which is all I really want to do at this point.
I've already sourced a good parts company, and Rock Auto carries a lot of typical wear and tear parts like brake pads, shocks, etc. And I've joined the Fiat Club of America. What the hell, if you're going to dive into a crappy old car, you may as well go in up to your neck!