I flagged the Chryslerati as Best Of; you should, too.

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You're the linecook at Maggiano's little Italy, and being of (vaguely) italian descent, you decide that you really ought to be nationalistic with your vehicle purchases. Sure, you've got the choice of buying the "maserati", but that would make you about as authentic as chinese food made by Mexicans.

No, you don't have much of a choice except to buy the Fiat.

You buy the car, and drive it home.

The rear end immediately shits itself in an awful cacophony of ground gears and the stink of burning gear oil. You think to yourself, "I bet this is what a dead whale would smell like." And you're probably right.

You begin taking classes that teach Italian at the local community college, finding that the latin can almost be used interchangably with spanish in some cases, allowing you to curse at the mexican linecooks at work in Italian and still be understood.

Of course, since Fiat owns Ferrari, you feel perfectly at home wearing Ferrari branded gear as you work on your Fiat. Owning a Fiat is like having a Ferrari, you tell yourself.

Yeah, just keep telling yourself that.

Work has been getting pretty stressful lately, and since your 8-hour work day has been so stressful, you need a 2-hour lunch/nap break half way through the day. Given your incredible skill with presentation, the kitchen manager begrudgingly grants you the request.

During your lunches you wrench on your Fiat, finding inventive ways to again make a Spyder transaxle work, since you can't exactly find another one.

Then came the day that during one of your high RPM shifts-- the very thing that makes a tiny italian car such a joy-- the engine drops a valve, and the engine destroys itself.

Emptying what little you have in your bank account, you cruise to the junkyard-- and much to your pleasure, you discover an INTACT Maserati biturbo.

And it's half price day. Given the chance to have some real thoroughbred power in your italian import, you use what money you had to buy the complete maserati engine.

You manage to shoehorn the engine into your Fiat, somehow get the flywheel and clutch to mate up (though they don't seem to like each other very much)

and for about 1/2 hour, you have the most fun to drive Fiat on US shores since... well, Fiat stopped selling cars here.

A half hour in, the transmission disintegrates, leaving you stranded.

Your cell phone is dead, so you can't call in to work. You miss the dinner rush, and because of your absence, the night goes horribly for your kitchenmates. You're fired when you come in the next day, and are left with no way to repair your Fiat, or pay your rent.

And this is just what Italian cars do. You wanted to be authentic Italian-- here you go, buddy. You got what you wanted.

If only you'd just bought Moped and been done with it.

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The TC ad is priceless. My vote goes to the MaserBaron out of respect for the seller. Which project is more hellish is irrelevant. "I HATE this car." FTW.

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Let's look at the Chrysler. Well, at least it's not the ugliest car Chrysler ever produced. Perhaps not the most beautiful vehicle ever, but not the worst. And, well, at least it's got K-car underpinnings. We know they're reasonably reliable. Hell, one model was called the Reliant! They wouldn't call it a Reliant unless it was actually reliable, right? And, sure, nobody is ever -- EVER -- going to be impressed with your car when you're driving a K-car, but look! At least there's Maserati branding! Right? And you're sure to be able to park with relative impunity around churches, bingo halls, casinos, retirement homes and Alzheimer clinics! Everyone will assume the driver is a tiny octogenarian woman, and there are very few police officers or parking attendants who have the heart to ticket someone like that, particularly when they realize the shock of receiving a ticket might just be enough to ensure they're not around to pay it.

On the downside, however, tiny octogenarian women might be the only kinds of chicks you'll attract in this car. Which is fine if you're into that kind of thing...

The Fiat on the other hand. Whew... well... uh... hey, at least it's freshly painted! Sure, it's been repainted in faded-piss-yellow, but that's... okay, right? Fresh paint is fresh paint. And sure, those tiny 14" rims do absolutely nothing to help the enormous visual height of that rear quarter panel, but at least you can swap those out, right? How hard can it be to find a nice set of four-bolt 17's with the correct pattern and spacing to fit a Fiat? Okay, sure, it's a 4x98mm bolt pattern, which pretty much doesn't exist on the aftermarket, but you can probably find a way to fix that. Eventually. And hey, at least there's a lot of affection for little coupes like this on the market. I mean, the Datsun 510, the BMW 2002? This is almost... completely... not entirely... slightly... almost nearly totally not dissimilar to one of those. Surely you'd get the same admiring glances... from people with poor eyesight.

Okay, that's not working. Let's go back to the old tried-and-tested technique. Which one's more likely to get you laid? Well, the Chryslerati might somehow be able to help you score with an octogenarian, which you could then cross off your bucket list. But there's at least a slim chance that you might encounter some sexy Italian exchange student who will feel all nostalgic when she sees your Fiat because it's just like the piss-yellow Fiat she used to make out in, with her first boyfriend, Cesare.

And really, that choice comes down to your personal preference. Since I'm not a huge fan of grammas-gone-wild, I'd go with the Fiat.

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Because how the fuck are you going to turn a Maserati K-car into a project?

How?

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The Fiat looks deceptively simple. Very Nissan-like. Maybe that's the siren song. Good luck finding parts from someone who works more than 4 hours every other day.

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I stopped reading at that point.

Fiat FTW

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"Let me start off with full disclosure: I HATE this car. I loathe it. I would pay good money never to see another Chrysler Maserati abomination again. If you like it, I promise I won't hold that against you. I am looking forward to failing at selling it so I can go back to the owner and humbly request permission to have it crushed into little satisfying bits. And yet still, I must try. "

For a grand, at least youd have an abomination thats kinda rare.

Hell? Fix It Again Tony!

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