Let me tell you a love story.

This is a small car. 

At least by modern standards. Very small, actually. But not cramped.

You could actually quite easily fit four adults inside, at least if those four adults are of a generally positive disposition. Which most people are, when faced with this little fellow.

This isn't a normal photo session where I borrow some test vehicle and fire off some pretentious shots in the course of a couple of hours. The time span of the pictures shown here are actually an entire year.

...It all started with a barn. A typical Norwegian red barn, as often found scattered around the countryside. Many of these buildings have lost their main purpose, namely to house farm animals and store hay for drying. Only a small number of farms are able to run their business with a profit. The less fortunate farmers usually sell off property and take up other occupations, leaving hundreds, if not thousands of these red barns obsolete. 

And here's the thing: They are ideal for storing vehicles. Dry, not too hot, sheltered and often parked behind huge farming equipment to prevent theft, these buildings now house a great number of enthusiast vehicles through the harsh Norwegian winter months. 

In one of these barns, in the middle of nowhere (seriously), sat an old Fiat. It had been sitting there for almost thirty years, only with the odd stretch-of-the-legs around the closest roads to prevent it seizing up completely.The owner was an old lady, aged seventy. She had gotten the car from her dad as a gift upon getting her driving license in the seventies. Since that day it had been her baby. 

I had been looking for one of these cars for a long time when I first heard of it. A friend of a friend of the son of the old lady gave me a heads-up and told me she was contemplating parting with the old friend. Not because she wanted to, but because she couldn't stand that it never got used. She had stopped driving it in the 80s, when other vehicles on the road grew larger and the speed limits rose. She bought another car as a runabout and gradually the Fiat lost its place as #1.

After I had promised to use it frequently and to take good care of it, the keys fell in my hands.

I was now the owner of a 1968 Fiat 600D! And not a bad one, either. It would turn out that the old charmer had survived its travels on typically rust-inducing Norwegian roads without severe damage. Only minor surface corrosion could be found. After servicing the mechanical bits, changing some damaged trim and replacing the stone hard tires, the car was ready to run.  

A part of me wanted to do a complete restoration with a full body respray and the works. But after taking in all the wonderful details of this car, it became obvious that this could never happen. It's got a couple of small dents and scratches, some traces of amateur repairs such as a re-welded front bumper and some odd stickers from the seventies decorating some of the small windows. 

But all of this only adds to the sentimental value. This car has made it through some of the most eventful years of history, and survived. Not only that, but it still looks cracking. With its original paint all intact (perhaps a bit flatter than when it left the Torino factory), glistening chromed hubcaps, window sills and fenders, it looks perfect in my book.

After the purchase, I started to do some research. It turned out the car had been bought new from the showroom in a small town called Hamar in Norway. It belonged to an old lorry driver for several years (that's when it got its small dents and the fractured front bumper, which was bluntly welded back into place) before the old lady's dad bought it from him in the mid-seventies. Due to then-new registration rules, the number plates were also changed into a "modern" two-letter-and-five-digit registration. This does NOT look good on an old car. 

Adding to the misfortune, the old plates didn't come with the car since it had been off the roads for years. The prospect of putting brand new plastic license plates on my little old darling was daunting. Luckily, and surprisingly, Norway turns out to be quite the vintage car fan's dreamland.

If a car is manufactured prior to 1971, you can change the registration number once. This meant I could use any kind of historically correct number, and even print them on old school metal plates. Perfect!

After some more research, I found the original license numbers. Even better; they weren't in use today! I could therefore get the old numbers, on vintage license plates to match the car. 

There are actually several vintage plate manufacturers in Norway. Some of them even use the same machinery as they did back in the old days, just to get the correct look. As an added bonus, the manufacturing process takes way less time than ordering regular plates off the Norwegian Directory of Motor Vehicles. The decision was simple. Shortly after, the plates were ready... 

And, as they say in the fairy tales, we lived happily ever after. Right now the car is hibernating in its garage, waiting for the snow to disappear and the salty roads to clear up. Then we'll have another summer of wonderful vintage motoring. 

Remind me again, why do people buy new cars?