Lancia Motor Club

At least I hope so!

A week ago we had a very short notice trip to Italy to view a Fulvia. Needless to say, a deposit was placed and the few items that needed to be attended to listed.

I really wanted to be able to drive it home but was impossible to get insurance organised. Friends with a trailer and tow car offered to help but with the cost of fuel, Channel crossings and time off work for a 5 day trip min I've decided to get it shipped home.

So I'm in limbo having paid for the car and shipping, yet have nothing to show for it. Hopefully it will be here in a couple of weeks then another couple to get it registered potentially.

I've been reading about classic cars for decades, Fulvias being of special interest because my Uncle had one in the late 70's, when I was a boy. Still a boy!

Though the car seems to be in fantastic condition, there are many jobs/ upgrades I'd like to do so I apologise in advance if I drive you all nuts with constant questions.

Any other Fulvias in North London?

Well done you!

Tony Rosewell (Fulvia Classics) has imported quite a lot of these from Italy, so if you get stuck or have problems trying to understand the paperwork he's a good guy to contact.

I met Tony Rosewell but didn't buy a car from him. Very nice chap, inspired me to get my arse in gear and get a Fulvia. He offered me an amazing Zagato......pockets not deep enough. I can imagine having one in the Future though!

Totally agree Tony is a top guy, purchased my Fulvia through him and he handled all the paperwork getting the UK registration in a very timely manner.
Enjoy your Fulvia.

So this car, which is still in Italy is a 1976 car 1.3s Series 2......the paperwork and the data badge under the bonnet agree with each other, its just I thought at this age it would be a series 3.

Does series 3 exist?

Thanks.

1976 will be a S3 car.

And yet the docs call it a 1.3s serie 2....

Fulvia 3 are S2 cars, later slightly facelifted, no such thing as Series 3 car.

That explains it. Thank you.

With a bit of luck, the car will begin it's journey to the UK tomorrow.

The shipping company are taking care of the Nova/HMRC/VAT business as part of their work.

Having spoken to DVLA this afternoon they have clarified that despite it being MOT exempt it needs an MOT for the registration process. It's a LHD car so has the headlights dipping the wrong way.

Does anyone have recent experience of this process that can share their experience with me, specifically any extra items for the MOT, where to get parts, or paperwork oddities.

Thanks, Howard

You will probably find it has different headlights to UK spec if series 2. UK has H4 bulb (main and dip) outer and pilot (side light). Your car will have H1 (single filament) and pilot outer I believe. As rhd H1 with pilot  do not exist afaik, you will need to use a H4 with pilot just driving the dipped element or doing a bit of wiring adaption. When buying (the limited choice) 5 3/4" headlight make sure it is rhd with a lttle arrow cast into the glass pointing right.

Maybe other folk importing these cars know another way (lenient Mot station??).

That's my kind of answer! It's what I'm hoping for but isn't what dvla said. Their online info is ambiguous.

Yep - mine never had an MOT as a LHD import from Italy. Registered no problem.

I’ve since added Hella RHD headlights with sidelights.

Mine didn’t need an mot for registration either only thing that was a problem my original documents (Dutch) didn’t specify date of manufacture it only had date of registration that happened to be the same as registration so the club had to verify the car before dvla would issue the v5

I notice your Fulvia has Lancia Beta side repeaters fitted.

Oddly enough, my Beta (restoration project) has Lancia Fulvia ones fitted. If they come off in usable condition would you like to swap? They both have the same hole pattern in the wings so it's a straight swap!

Drop me a PM with your address and I'll pop them in the post when I get them off in the next few days!

Guy

Where did you get the replacement headlights from?

EBay. They were £50 for the pair (Hella) and were advertised as being for a TVR Griffith c/w hole for sidelight.

Thanks for the offer Guy. I'd better take them off and have a look first just in case there is some paint issue behind the larger Beta repeaters. Not sure when the car will be here but I'm now told it's being collected today.

Howard

Those are H4 bulbs lamps - no problem to wire just the dipped beam. The othe consideration is the "pegs" at the back of the headlamp bowl may not line up with the carello/Seim retaining bucket.

The pegs locate correctly on mine although the rubber cover that comes with the units for the bulb base makes the unit too deep, so I discarded them. I have fitted LED H4 bulbs.  

Why would someone not use the main beam filament?

My experience recently is also that you don’t need an MOT to register. Once the duty has been paid, you can then send paperwork to DVLA and include a V112 form (from memory) to get exemption. However, the DVLA did ask for an inspection……not a problem as they just send a representative. This was really just to check chassis numbers correlate to paperwork, with no additional expense on my part.  Make sure the paperwork is as accurate as possible, without errors, as this will save a lot of time in the long run…….it still takes forever though! Good luck.

Charles

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Its not how lhd cars are wired (main beam is on the inners) hence I said wiring modification. If you run the main beam and inner main beam without additional relays you wil burn out the main beam relay..... However, if you use LED I suspect this gets round the aforementioned problem.
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I’m fairly certain that my units that I swapped were the original ones and they had H4 plugs and bulbs, so on main beam the inners and outers were all main beams.  TBH I don’t see why Lancia would have done it any other way.

In 1998 when I imported my Lambda from Australia I drove it around for a year and then went into my local DVLA office (anyone remember these) and registered it in about 15 minutes.    Life was simpler then!

Look at any Fulvia wiring diagram....... Inners are main beam. UK market modified the wiring for H4 bulbs and the inners were via a separate switch - driving lamps.... Even this is not shown on UK drivers handbook wiring diagram. beware burning out the main beam relay driving inner and outer main beam filaments....

lancialulu,

Oh dear, how embarrassing! A great eating of humble pie and sincere apologies are due!

The wiring diagram does indeed show the wiring you describe, but more importantly I found that when I looked at the old outer lamp units just now, I found they were only able to take H1 (single filament) bulbs!

I had forgotten that when I installed the Hella units and fitted H4s LEDs I wired up the main beam terminals to the inner lights so I could have 4 main beam "filaments" burning. Why Lancia didn't do things this way I do not know, another relay wouldn't have cost much.

Ah well, old age is a terrible thing  >:(

She's home!

Matches the front door.

Enjoy, nothing like owning and driving a Fulvia.

Already got a list of stuff to attend to before I'd consider it road ready, not least the need to register it.

Might be asking quite a few questions on this board!.....thank you all in advance!

In 2021 I registered my two Fulvia GTEs which I had already had in the UK for some time. There was no need to MOT the cars so sounds like the person you spoke to at DVLA didn’t understand their own requirements. I seem to recall it’s clear enough on the V55/5 form.

https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration/new-registrations

Have you advised HMRC yet? You should do that straight away.

I had the cars inspected for accuracy of chassis and engine number etc. and year of manufacturer confirmed from club records. It’s not a cheap service. I could have avoided that by sending in the original Italian registration documents, but DVLA don’t as a rule return them (and say that you won’t get it back) so I wanted to avoid that and just claimed that in each case they were missing.
Your car looks great. Good luck Tom

Hi Tom.

The shipping company have taken care of the HMRC stuff and vat to be paid. I'm just waiting for the NOVA docs, whatever they are and I'll submit to DVLA. I have the Italian export/ registration docs so hope it will be straight forward.

Being a 1976 car, Fulvia 3, I understand I can use black and silver plates even though in period they would have been yellow/ white. What's the consensus on this - I quite like the black and silver.....

To be period correct yellow laminated plates my 71 is on the aluminium black and silver your choice.
Just enjoy your car and do whatever you want, myFulvia is not for the purists but hey I like the look.

Out of interest (and sorry if you have already said this somewhere else) how do they calculate import duties and vat for a car going to the UK ?

Here in France, to bring in a UK registered car over 30yrs old ,  it is a flat 5.5% of the car's agreed value, including transport costs - plus the various handling fees. This is a vat/import duty combined figure

How does that compare ?

There is no duty, just vat based on value (purchase price) plus shipping costs.....however it seems to have cost me slightly less than I anticipated. The exact figures used are a mystery to me as I have yet to receive paperwork showing the calculation and the HMRC receipt. Also waiting for NOVA paperwork so I can register the car. The shipping company are very poor communicators so I don't know how long the wait will be.

Black and white plates used to be linked to the rolling 40 year historic vehicle status but I think they have frozen it at 1980.

Sean