I am writing to you in response to your letter to my father of 11 February, 2009. Sadly, my Father, Frank passed away in October 2005 at the age of 80 years. I am sure Frank would have been delighted to see it in such great shape and you obviously are continuing to use it in the manner it was intended.

I had actually tried unsuccessfully to send you an email in the first half of 2006 after my son had discovered the Flickr website featuring photographs of my father’s Fiat 509 special and directed several family & friends to it. We were all very excited to see that his car is still being lovingly cared for. You have done a magnificent job in restoring the little sports
car.

I can remember riding in the car as a small boy in the late 1950’s early 1960’s. It was a fun machine. Frank disposed of the vehicle in 1961 (he built & owned it for approximately 14 years) when our family grew with the arrival of my sister. My mother has a number of details and is trying to piece together the ownership chronology as he sold it to arrival in the UK. She believes there maybe an error in some of the information you have received. Frank was a gifted tool maker, craftsman and musician who could make almost anything he turned his mind to – working model steam trains, racing model aircraft engines, radio control gliders with his own designed and manufactured radio transmitter/receiver systems etc. Dad always enjoyed motor sports and was surprised when at a family picnic in the 1980’s tosee his old Fiat racing car competing at the Eastern Beach in Geelong. You have a photograph of him with the car at this event when it was numbered 111 on the website. It was great thrill for us all, including his grand children. The car had several different rear end body treatments in it’s lifetime as well as exhaust systems. It was also featured on the cover of a book titled “In Praise of Vintage & Veteran Cars in Australia” Sporting Types – I have attached a scanned copy of the cover & inner page with car.

I am currently living & working in the USA and there may have some old original photographs and records of the car in storage, in Australia. I see you already have a good collection on the website. I would be pleased to forward copies of these to you when I return to live in Australia in late 2009. There may also some information on its early racing history, but I cannot be certain of this. I also know that before he built a new garage there were some parts he had for the vehicle, which he had never used. I suspect that these may have now gone with the re-organization of his new garage, but I will check latter this year when I return to Australia.

We deeply appreciate your naming of his sports car and keeping it actively competing, I am sure he would be greatly impressed and would have loved to provide whatever assistance he could.