Lancia Motor Club

As an owner, I wasn’t entirely prepared for the public reaction to the Fulvia. From the ride home from Tony Roswell’s shop, I have gotten used to the smiles and waves on the road, the thumbs-ups on the M11, the conversations at petrol stations. Prior to yesterday, the peak event in this line was the day I was shopping at the local Tescos when the manager came on the public address system and I heard ‘Would the owner of the lovely vintage Lancia Fulvia come to the customer service desk’, where I was informed that I had left my lights on.

But yesterday, as I was working in my garage on some DIY, a ‘vintage’ neighbour wandered up my drive and said ‘That’s a lovely Fulvia!’ I thanked the man, and he reached into his pocket and said ‘I have something you might be interested in.’ And he produced a handkerchief from his pocket, carefully unrolled it, revealing  a 2 1/2 inch square of Kodachrome and passed it over to me. It was a picture of  Fulvia HF in full flight through a snowy passage with a view over the heads of a couple of children. ‘Do you know who that is?’ He asked. ‘That looks like Harry Källström!’, I said, noting the no. 12, and indeed it was. The fellow had been at the RAC rally in 1969 and this was a picture he took as a young boy watching the Fulvia thrash the competition; Källström won. ‘Your Fulvia reminded me of that day!’ He said.

Good times!

This is one of the greatest joys of owning a Fulvia Recently I drove the length of France in one in 35 deg heat not seeing another classic car in 1000km. When we got to Dover we stopped for some petrol at the first Shell garage and while I was checking  (well topping up) the oil an old lorry driver came over and said he used to clean these cars in days gone by at a Lancia garage in Maidstone. It made both our days!!!

I bought my second Fulvia Berlina GTE from a classic car dealer in Italy and drove it home. All the way through Europe I was getting waves and thumbs up from passing motorists, even having a conversation through open windows in a traffic jam about where I bought the car and for how much. An unexpected additional pleasure to the journey.

Having had a Fulvia for over 45 years I can relate to your story. In the first 10 years of ownership I travelled across Europe in it, as far as the North of Sweden travelling through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark both in summer and winter as well as south through France and Switzerland to Italy. I often had compliments from  all variety of people when I stopped. More recently the compliments have increased. In fact they are often followed by "would you be prepared to sell her?" And serious offers are made. I dare not let my wife drive it on her own as she would probably take the money!