Hello all, I know that this is a car that's not to everyone's taste, but I thought it was worth making a thread about. This is my first Lancia, I've always liked the Fulvias but never managed to get hold of one. I'd missed out on a kit form Coupe around 15 years ago, and the prices since then were just out of my range at the time! I came across the listing for this when I was on holiday with some fellow weird car friends in rural france. I'd bought a very cheap Jaguar XJ for the trip, and the question of what I was going to get after that led to a few ebay searches. As soon as I saw this I knew I just needed to save this and get it back on the road, hopefully to take on our various european meetups. Viewing arrangements were made, and I did a deal to buy without the alloy bonnet or doors it was- would have been nice to have, but out of the budget I had at the time.
A couple of weeks later I collected it with a random selection of parts and started to take stock of what I'd got myself in for. As it turns out, it needs just about everything, but it's something I'm determined to do. So far 2023 has mostly been stripping it down and assessing what needs to be done. There's a lot of prior repairs to unpick- from the old photos of the car the door fitment has always been a bit off, and it still is. I think that was from the rear arch replacement as the profile doesn't quite follow. Possibly the worst area is the rear spring hanger on the passenger side which is totally gone. Not too complicated to get a replacement pressed, but time consuming. Sills all need doing as do most of the external panels below the swage line. Lots of patches on patches! The Citroen D pillars are the most rusted parts above this, but I have a complete cut of a GS to repair this with. A friend in Grenoble found a GS Break in his local scrapyard and I shot down there over a long weekend to cut the back of the car off. It didn't quite go entirely to plan but that's all part of the fun.
The car originally was a 1216, but I only got the crankcase of the engine with it. I picked up a complete 1298 engine and gearbox with a good subframe, and over the christmas break have been cleaning that up. That's the first part I need as then I can start replacing the subframe mounts (one of which is completely gone), and move on to the sills and floors. As the cross bracing that's behind the rear seats on a couple has been removed it probably would benefit from a bit of reinforcement. I've also sourced a Fibreglass bonnet and a pair of alloy doors- one has a decent dent in, but should be repairable. As well as various assorted parts.
As a project it's a big one! The metro van next to it in one of the photos is the priority for this year, but I do want to make some progress - I will keep the thread updated as it goes along.
