Since acquiring his very first Fiat 500, Serge Domec has fallen in love not only with the brand but also with Italy and the Italian Dolce Vita. Encounter.
Serge Domec’s stand at the 39th Stock Exchange organized this weekend at the Parc des Expositions in Tarbes by the Classic Auto Pyrénées association (see below) is a real invitation to travel to Italy. A country that this tobacconist from Soues fell in love with as new pieces came to swell the ranks of his Fiat 500 collection.
“I bought my first Fiat 500 when I was 20. I continued to buy them, today I have 38 and I don’t intend to stop”, summarizes Serge Domec his passion. An intact passion which, at 58, takes him even further. “I go several times a year to Italy, for a year, I also take Italian lessons twice a week and I plan to spend my retirement in this country”, enthuses the one who even pushed the walls of his house and his tobacco shop “Les Tropiques” to make room for his collection.
A Fiat 500 unearthed in the mountains
“At home, they are everywhere. When I want to get one out, I have to move ten,” he confides, smiling. But this regional representative of the Fiat 500 Club has also brought his passion to work by setting up a special corner in his tobacco shop, called “The Fiat 500 den”. Enough to make his reputation known, to the point that “people come to offer me to sell me their Fiat 500 because they know that I do not resell them”, he underlines. Because for Serge Domec, the pleasure is elsewhere. “I like to restore them and on Sundays I drive with them”, he explains. A Sunday outing that he essentially does with other enthusiasts of the mythical brand. “With the other clubs, I don’t go too much because it goes too fast for my cars. But what I really like is taking the time to live,” he confides. It also takes time to fix them up, but that’s part of his pleasure. “When I buy them, it doesn’t have to work”, sums up this fifty-year-old that nothing predestined to mechanics. “I learned on the job and I was only born to repair Fiat 500s,” he adds humbly.
But if there’s one he’s going to keep as it is, it’s this little one he dug up in the middle of the mountain. “A customer once told me that he found a Fiat 500 half buried. For a month, in July 2020, I spent all my weekends digging to get it out. And this weekend, I’m exhibiting it here,” he invites.