When I was driving my Fiat 500 on a mountain road some years ago, I noticed an unusual object in the roadside bush. I pulled it out of the grass and it was a basketball ring.
何年か前、フィアット５００で山の中をドライブしていたら何か変なものが道端のヤブの中に顔をのぞかせていた。草から引っ張りだしたらバスケットボールのゴールリングだった。

A basketball ring? But why in the mountain? Well, I thought it was illegally dumped, and decided to bring it back home, because I always dreamed of having a basketball goal above the garage like ones I saw in the States.
へ？バスケの輪っか？でも何で山ん中に？まあ不法投棄だろうなと思って、持って帰ることにした。アメリカでよく見かけたガレージの上に付いているやつみたいなのを欲しいなあと常々思ってたから。

However, the ring was much much heavier than I thought and I kinda regretted as soon as I picked it up– not just heavy, it looked huge on the rear seat of the miniature-sized Cinquecento, Ever since then, the hoop had been sleeping in the garage until yesterday morning, when I started to build the supporting beams and the board.

ところが、リングは思っていたよりめっちゃ重くて、拾い上げたとたんにちょっと 後悔した。重いだけじゃなく、ちっこいチンク号の後席でリングは巨大に見えた。それ以来ずっと輪っかはうちのガレージで眠っていた、、、支持梁とボードを作り始めた昨日の朝までは。

The job’s done! Whoops! I realized I hadn’t order a net and a basketball, yet! Gotta buy ‘em from Amazon or somewhere, now.
完成っ！、、、わっ！ネットとボールを持ってなかったんだった。すぐアマゾンかどっかで買わなきゃ。

If you need, go to the Japanese article

Cinquecentos in general have various door mirrors simply because side mirrors were (allegedly) not required around the time Cinques came out in Italy in the 1950s. So, they put on whatever available or their favorite stuff, today. However, it seems that most of their efforts have failed and the mirrors seen on the Cinques look neither functional nor aesthetical.

The former owner’s choice was even worse: black, bullet-shaped and too small– ugly and dangerous. I had replaced them with chrome-plated ones, and looked OK but still too small.

I thought it’s a good idea to install a pair of “present” Fiat 500’s door mirrors and tried, but in vain… They were too large (despite that the present one is relatively small compared with other ordinary cars).

Finally, after weeks of search throughout the web, I came across the door mirrors for the early Mazda Miata, whose rounded shape fits that of the Cinque, and bought a pair on the web auction. The original color was rather dull, so I painted them in red!

The angle of the door surface where the mirror was attached was too close to vertical. I had to make a wedge-shaped spacer to correct the angle of the mirror.  The spacer’s surface must be curved so as to fit the door’s curvature. The old Miata’s mirrors are not motorized and small enough to fit the micro Cinque, and their oval shapes go so well with round shape of my car.

Here they are:

It was a good fine day today, so that I slipped in my Fiat 500 to get to the mountain house.

Just about reaching the mountain pass, it started to snow. I was worried about the tires, which were not for snowed or frozen road.

When I arrived, it looked the weather had recovered, but soon the situation started to get even worse. Then I decided to do stuff only for a few hours or so to be able to get back home before sunset.

I was sort of hurry to work, and made a major bummer– stepped on an old nail, which pierced the shoe sole and stuck in the thenar of my left foot so deep. It’s swollen and still aching even now…

Oh, well… I quit the day’s work much earlier, for it seemed a bad idea to continue in the miserable now with an aching foot. I thought I could have got more injury; the work of the day was mainly with a circular saw, which is very dangerous.

On the way back, the thermometer at the pass indicated “-1″(degree, Celsius= below freezing point).  There wasn’t much snow and the road surface wasn’t frozen yet, but if I went there after dark… uhhh… I don’t even wanna think…

My cute little Italiana, Fiat Cinquecento, is now hospitalized.

Although I had been working on her, repairing the wiring & harness, checking and monkeying the electrical stuff, like the windshield wiper, and so on, I finally came across the major bummer– the rotten body with panels that were rusted thorough here and there… uhhh, all over, more appropriately.

I might have been able to fix those metal-work stuff, but it would take a lot of arm’s grease and I cannot afford the time, since I am commuting to a house– far out in mountains– which I am fixing all by myself. I can’t drive the Fiat while I am doing the house, anyway. So, I decided to bring her over to the professionals of a local motor garage.

Waiting for my love to return home, I am daydreaming of modifying her with a pair of door mirrors which are originally for the new Fiat 500. These new mirrors may be a little too large, but I don’t mind. I photoshopped a photo of her so as to see how she would be looking like with the unusual rear-view mirrors.

Well, they surely seem too big and they make the Cinquecento appear like a doggy– but with them, cute isn’t she?