It has been a long time coming, but the St. Louis area Fiat owners of the Roamin Chariots got together for a preliminary meeting Aug 23rd, 2003. We met at Ken Dickson's Fiat garage in West Alton, just North of St. Louis, between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Mother Nature smiled on the event with beautiful clear skies and 90 degree weather. Perfect top down driving on a Saturday afternoon.

There was a good turnout with a couple of new owners joining the group. We had six cars all together out of a possible eight. Deano had a float trip scheduled and Dan was AWOL (He will need some kind of excuse for the next meeting.

Everyone met at the Garage Mahal (Steve Wood christened it). It was the first social event in Red's new home. The lanscaper had put the finishing touches only an hour before the cars started to arrive. We are looking forward to many more meetings here.

The cars started to arrive around 4:00 with Steve and his lovely wife Melinda (Mel for short) in the metallic red 75 spider from Clayon, MO. Then Marc and Lia Sova pulled in off the highway in their 'new to them' 74 spider that he bravely drove up from Belleville, IL without 1st gear. Marc's only previous trip with this car was on a dolly when he brought it home a couple of weeks ago. Next down the driveway was Ken Wood and his amazingly red Yugo from Fairview Heights, IL. Shortly afterward Rick and his son Taylor Wilson arrived from Chesterfield, MO in their rose colored 73 spider.

The meeting started out at the barn with everyone getting to know each other and checking out the cars. Karen Dickson put together some snacks and the group made a feeble attempt to empty the garage fridge of water, tea, and beer. They will have to try harder next time. It was great to see so many couples turn out for the meeting. The girls are already planning an outing at the antique shops in nearby St. Charles while the guys stay at the barn and compare induction variations.

After snacks and checking out the cars, we loaded up a couple of coolers and moved the meeting a mile and a half down the road to Harbor Point Marina where we had access to the clubhouse, pool and (a rather disfunctional) barbeque. We parked the cars in front of the sailboat bay and went over to the clubhouse for an excellent dinner prepared by Steve of Burgers, brauts, and ballpark dogs. The party broke up shortly after dark as who would want to get bugs on the nicely prepared cars. We are all looking forward to the October wine run to Washington Missouri.