Fiat Bambina

Dont give up - my first car was a pale pink bambina that my Dad and I restored together. The best time we had ever spent together. very fun first car, and safe as they dont go fast except downhill Lol i even managed to get a speeding ticket in mine! Pretty hard to find now so looking forward to hearing about your search.

We had one of these for years ('66 "F").The two cylinder inline engine vibrates a lot, so you've got to go over the engine regularly looking for loose bolts etc.Not unusual for manifolds, distributors, carby etc to come loose and cause problems at inconvenient times. They tend to run hot and leak a little oil & fumes, so ignition cables arcing used to be an ongoing problem (perhaps better these days if high quality cables are used).There's no synchro on 1st gear - this is perhaps more of an issue than with other old cars with no synchro on 1st, as the Bambina doesn't have much power (understatement) and driving on hills with a passenger or two, downshifts from 2nd to 1st really are needed routinely, so learning to double declutch smoothly is useful if you don't want to show your lack of ability to drive the thing properly by stopping to engage 1st gear.
Passing slow traffic was a problem - it would take forever, and there was at least a 50:50 chance that as soon as you pulled alongside the car you were passing, they'd laugh, make cranking gestures, and accelerate at the same speed you were - until you gave up.The first hundred times this happens was very funny indeed, the next hundred times it degraded to being only mildly amusing, but after a few thousand attempts.Same can be said about finding it parked jammed cross-ways in an angle park, or on the footpath when you returned from shopping etc.If you were on your own, you needed to find a volunteer to help - you need at least two people to pick one of these cars up and carry it back to the road.
Running out of petrol was regular, there's no gauge, once the reserve light comes on, it's anybody's guess (often wrong) how far you'll get.
There's absolutely no objective reason to buy one of these things.A new-ish daihatsu type car is infinitely more comfortable, safer, faster, more reliable, better handling, more economical, etc etc.
But. I'd love to own one again.

don't forget they mostly have double clutch system

buy her a cheap mx5 and then you wont be rescueing her every saturday night at 10 pm

Love it! You should be a journalist or something.

I owned one in the sixties. ,,,, pushed it further than I drove it.Still looking for the radiator ,,,,,,,

we got a 600D so at least we got a radiator!

oh and dont forget you can sit on the back of the seat and poke your head out the sunroof
was great on a hot day