Lancia Motor Club

Today I saw Keith Large's very smart late Beta Spider 2000.  I did this because I was buying Keith's HF Coupe.  I hope that Keith won't mind if I pinch one of his photo.  Some of my own appear later.

This is thought to be the last RHD HF made, and its late 1980s restoration was featured in the LMC in 1990.  The car was also featured in the Martin Buckley Flavia article in Classic and Sports Car in June 2012.

The car needs one rear arch re-doing, and has a few small bubbles and blemishes elsewhere, but it is generally in very presentable order. The interior has a good patina to it and needs little or nothing doing.   The car runs very well.  The brakes have an issue - possibly a duff seal, and some bits and bobs at the front suspension need re-doing, but overall this is a lovely car. The brakes issue make the car unsuited for a long drive, so the car will be low-loadered to my place early next week, where I'll get my mechanic to sort the brakes etc, and then get a bodyshop onto the arch etc.

I have owned many, many classic cars, from a very basic Pug 205 to a Daimler Sovereign and Jensen Interceptor, and various heaps in between, but this Lancia is I think the classiest motor that I have ever owned.  It's a proper grown up grand tourer.

Sadly, this purchase means that I will sell my Beta, but I hope that an LMC member might buy it.  

Many thanks Keith for being such a gentleman.  I will cherish this car!


(https://i.ibb.co/VJ2JhzV/009-2.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Jm5mbGn)

Well done. I love the 2000 HF Coupe. When I think back to doodling cars in the back of my school exercise book back in the late 60s that's the shape I was drawing. I too would jump at the opportunity if one came my way. Good luck selling the Beta, it shouldn't be hard to find a new home for such a gem.

I do covet these, a proper gentleman's motorcar.

A bit like a Ferrari 250GTE but better looking and a fraction of the cost

Andrew

The general air of quality that the car exudes does make it comparable to refined grand tourers from Ferrari and Maserati back when those marques were still classy and not bling.  The only car that I have had owned that is comparable is a Jensen Interceptor, and I have to say that although I love Interceptors they are bitsers with a relatively crude American engine and gearbox, and some naff build quality elements such as very visible exposed screw heads in the cabin (the HF has some but less visible).  Also, an Interceptor with its huge lazy V8 and three speed slushbox can't cruise at 30 mpg plus as a five speed four cylinder Lancia can.  I did a grand tour to the Abruzzo and back in an Interceptor and almost caused a market run on petroleum futures.

Anyway, the Lancia's left rear wheel arch is mucho crusty.   Research here suggested that Austin 1100 arches might fit, but then.... eBay Italia YOU BEAUTY.

Brand new entire wing.  I clicked "Compralo Subito" so hard that I punched a hole in my keyboard.  

(https://i.ibb.co/Mc3ZyTg/wing.jpg) (https://ibb.co/n756q2w)

Serendipity?  There is a complete body shell at a scrapper in Wigan.  I will go and have a prod at it.

Congratulations, that looks lovely

CORRECTION:  This car was first registered in 1975, not 1974.  

The history file for this car is very good, subject to two large chronological gaps.  It includes the original order form, the original sale invoice, many MOTs, many bills, and various letters.

Factoid:  three of the car's eight non-dealer owners have been called Alan!

The car was manufactured in September 1973.   It is one of the last twenty five built and may be the last RHD version.  

The car was sold in February 1975 to a partner in Price Waterhouse Coper who lived in Belgravia and had a house near Inverness.  This was his second Lancia Coupe.  The car was Rosso Scuro (mis typed Rosso Escuro on the order form) with grey cloth.  Options specified were inertia reel seat belts, a Radiomobile and speakers, and an electric aerial.  The price new was £3255.    The supplying dealer was Lancia, Audi, Mercedes, and BMW dealer Waterloo Carriage (London) Limited, which was in business from 1964 to 1996.

The first owner exchanged letters with Lancia in May 1975 complaining that parts were not available - he wanted a torsion bar, a plug for an electric window, and a CR reverse switch.  The parts were in short supply but a note on the letter shows that they arrived in June 1975.

The car was sold in June 1982 to a chap with a Bloomsbury address for £1500, via a London dealer called Lanciana.  The PWC chap replaced the car with a Gamma Coupe LHV 80X.  

The second owner traded the HF for a new Montecarlo EJV 669Y, with Lancia dealer David Short (Motors) in Cleethorpes in May 1982.  The dealer gave £800 as the PX price, and sold the car to its third owner (price unknown).  

The same dealer sold the car again in September 1986 for £550.   The fourth owner, who lived in Grimsby and posts on the Beta Forum as rossocorsa, corresponded with the first owner about the car, and with Pininfarina in Italy about build numbers.   He gave the car a very thorough restoration in the late 1980s.  This was covered in the LMC journal.  

During the restoration the car was repainted and was trimmed in beige cloth.   It appears that a donor car, HEY 920N, was bought for £350 from a bloke in Warrington as part of the project.

The restored car was sold to its fifth owner, a Dublin Lancia enthusiast, in 2005, it seems for only £850 "as seen for restoration", and went to Ireland as ZV 7848. The car might have had another full or partial restoration after 2005.  The car appeared in Classic and Sports Car in June 2012.  

The car came back to the UK in August 2015, bought by a dealer in Hereford, who counts as the sixth owner because he had the car for a while and had some work done on it including some welding.  The dealer had the car re-registered as HJD 208N, and sold it in January 2016 for £12,500 to an LMC member in Bristol.

The seventh owner had various work done on the car including a front suspension rebuild, some work on the ignition and fuel system, a wheel refurb and a new set of Firestones which the car still has on.  

The car was sold again to its eighth owner, another LMC member, in 2017, had a few more bits and bobs done, and was sold again to me, the ninth owner, last Friday.

The file shows that the car has in general been well maintained by its owners and has had lots of new parts over the years.  It seems from the tyre bills always to have had decent tyres on it.

My plan is to attend to the rusty arch and other smaller rust spots, give the car a gentle machine polish, perhaps paint the control stalks which are a tad mottled, and sort out the (I hope) minor mechanical issues.  I will then use the car as much as I can.  

Journeying from Belgravia to ones second home in Inverness is what a great Lancia is all about. A Flaminia I broke for spares had been used for weekly commuting from Suffolk to Faslane by a naval officer who had previously driven it on leave to and from his posting as naval attaché in Cairo!

Yes, just the thing!   The Cairo commute is epic.   Una carozzera di gentiluomo and all that.  I'm no gentleman, and Kennington and Oxfordshire are not quite Belgravia and Inverness-Shire (or Cairo), but there we are.

A few corrections and additions to the history above.

The car was supplied with static seat belts even though inertia reels had initially been specified (it has inertia reels front and back now).  The car had electric windows as standard but these must have been changed to wind up windows during the late 80s restoration.

The DVLA was notified of a change of colour to "maroon/beige" in late 1986.  When the car changed hands in that year it had already been painted so as to have a maroon roof and a cream body with maroon stripes along the sides.  That look did not suit the car!

Other photos show the car in a light caramel beige colour overall - this may have been undercoat.  The bills show a retrim in 1988 and a respray in 1989.

There are many bills for the period 1986 to 1996 but the bills stop in 1996 and the MOTs stop in 1997.   The SORN system started in 1998 and there is a SORN for 2004.   It seems that the car was off the road from about 1997/98 to 2005.

There are no bills for the ten year period in Ireland - its then owner looked after the car himself.  Bills resume in late 2015 and there are MOTs from 2015 and 2016.  The car failed its last MOT in 2017 (on fairly minor matters).  I aim for the car to have an (optional) MOT again later this year.

MOT history is as follows -

1978 to 1981 MISSING
Oct 1981 mileage 35263
1982 missing
(a file note from the second owner indicates that the car was used at that time for long business trips and a trip to the Loire)
Aug 1983    47165
Aug 1984    49567
July 1985    55431
Sep 1986    60122
1987-88      off road for repairs
March 1989 60497
March 1990 64566
April 1991   69581
May 1992    73123
July 1993    75313
1994           maybe off road
April 1995   77643
May 1996    80220
July 1997    81082
No MOT certs 1998 to 2003.
SORN August 2004

Mileage on registration in Ireland 83194
Ireland 2005 to 2015.  The car is reported to have been driven to Italy and back during this time.  

MOT November 2015 102670 (so car driven approx 2000 miles a year while in Ireland).
MOT December 2016 104218
MOT Failure Notice in December 2017 at 106117 miles.  The current mileage is approx 107640.

I aim to drive this car to France and maybe to Italy this year or next, although the lack of air conditioning might put me off.  We are such wimps compared to the GT drivers of the 60s and 70s!

Not in the file, but sent to me by email, is the 1990 article from the LMC Journal which describes the restoration in 1987-8.

The car had, prior to 1986, been in at least one accident that smashed up one rear wing.  The car had been painted black.  The dealership in Cleethorpes had done the maroon/cream paint scheme.  The fourth owner had the car repainted in Rosso Scuro.     I hope that the fourth owner will not mind me putting these photos up - they came with the car.  I will take them down if he objects.  

Since the resto the car has lost the stripes along the lower part of the flanks.  Those stripes are, however, present on the diecast model of the car in this colour that i have just bought from eBay.  I think that a thin grey or maybe gold stripe along the mid line of the car might look good.  There are some gold Cromodoras on sale in Italy but they would be too bling!


(https://i.ibb.co/4ZGsdnB/2000-preresto.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qMf053b)



(https://i.ibb.co/G5QhYCf/2000resto.jpg) (https://ibb.co/DRfqcwP)

Talking of long distance commuting, the early aluminium Fulvia Sport OPD23E we owned (twice!) was bought new by the first owner from the factory to commute from Rome to Shepperton. He worked between the Dino de Laurentis Film Studios just outside Rome and Shepperton Film Studios. The car had Imperial instruments from new but of course was lhd. Apparently it was superb cruising at 130/140kph, very quiet and economical. We were the 2nd (and 4th) owners.
I believe the car is now on the Continent, possibly in Belgium.
Chris

The 60s and early 70s reviews of Lancias tend to write breezily of effortless all day cruising at 100 mph.  Not so easy to do these days (although what may, allegedly, have occurred on some deserted and camera-free bits of dual carriageways when I used my boring but fast modern car for (legal) visits to my school age daughter during the first lockdown last spring is, er , just alleged, er...).   

Many thanks to the car's seventh owner for filling in some gaps in the history and providing the info to correct some errors above.

 

Am greatly looking forward to the saga and adventures.  Low loader due to brake issues...its almost as if you recently suffered a complete brake failure in a classic Lancia and didn't want to repeat the experience...

In time, when it starts to limit the use, am sure "lack of air conditioning" could be addressed.  The obvious solution to do the first few (!!!) Italian trips in cooler weather.  Another thought is:

https://www.thetrimmingcentre.co.uk/tudor-webasto

Talking of cooler runs to the continent, a Flavia has a lever under the bonnet to limit steering lock when snow chains are fitted.  Was that carried forward to the 2000?

Thanks!  Will have to check re snow chains

A few pics


(https://thumbsnap.com/s/umEW36Mc.jpg)

(https://thumbsnap.com/s/pFh9D87A.jpg)

(https://thumbsnap.com/s/UsZAaRZm.jpg)

(https://thumbsnap.com/s/PwEM1UpQ.jpg)

Note incorrect Lancia badge on bonnet.  The correct HF badges are both present.  I wonder why on this type the HF badge has no elephants.  Wim Oud  Weernink, whom I am coming to think is a little bit overrated as a Lancia guru, incorrectly calls the HF badge an ie badge in his book on Fulvias, Flavias, and 2000s.    His book on Appias is very good, but I am not quite as impressed by La Lancia or by the Fulvia/Flavia/2000 book.

(https://i.ibb.co/vDjt45x/flavbarn.png) (https://ibb.co/V3qKYyW)

My mechanic likes the car.   He is impressed by the engineering and build quality.  The bodywork issues are fixable.   The car is very complete and appears always to have been well maintained.  The mech is still working on the car and has has not yet discovered what is wrong with the brakes, but has discovered that the steering idler arm needs a repair - lots of play in it at the moment and the car noses to the left when you lift off the throttle.  Repair kit ordered.

We both love the design detail like the clever "keep the rear window clear" airflow thing at the back end of the roof, and the lovely door open warning red lights (only one of which is working, but it is the offside one).

Ah ha: the rear brakes are a bit fottato, and so is the hand brake.  Needs a special tool to to get the hubs off,  apparently.  I will ask the Consortium and Omicron and what not. 

Don't forget the club hires out special tools too.... Tim PS nice 2000HF

Fab, thanks, will check the magazine to see whom to ask about tools.

Ask Tim!

At least on the Fulvia some of the hub nuts had three slots and some six so might be worth establishing that so Tim can sort the right tool.

Thanks!

Three slots on the inner for the handbrake drum.  Bearing tool not needed at this stage as wheel bearings seem OK.  So, a three slot rear hub tool needed, I think.  I will contact Tim.   I will enquire of the Consortium (I've just joined it ) about hub nuts.

I have in the past re used the hub nuts but a new one won’t do any harm of course.

Panel -


(https://thumbsnap.com/s/b3abk36m.jpg)


Engine bay.  The exhausts have been flattened off by speed bumps near where they exit the engine.


(https://thumbsnap.com/s/VaVLSbv9.jpg)

(https://thumbsnap.com/s/6owSGtii.jpg)


Front hub, and bits of suspension and subframe.  


(https://thumbsnap.com/s/T1zPAd2S.jpg)

The fourth owner, who restored the car, has provided some helpful extra details via another forum.    The cloth interior was never grey.  The sales form contained an error.  The rear seat may be original.  The front seats, door panels and headlining were redone in 1989.  The car may have been painted whilst in Ireland and possibly again since then.  The fourth owner made some mods to the front arches to improve rust protection.

Here is the car waiting for some bits.

(https://thumbsnap.com/s/kVjs6kX5.jpg?0328)

OK, it is after 9PM, but if you are of a sensitive disposition, look away now.

Here is the horror of the rusty arch, before and after a temporary repair with filler.

https://thumbsnap.com/s/61CPJqJe.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/61CPJqJe](https://thumbsnap.com/s/61CPJqJe.jpg)|https://thumbsnap.com/61CPJqJe (http://[img)

https://thumbsnap.com/s/VqC84kQk.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/VqC84kQk](https://thumbsnap.com/s/VqC84kQk.jpg)|https://thumbsnap.com/VqC84kQk (http://[img)

https://thumbsnap.com/s/7pqdVtg5.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/7pqdVtg5](https://thumbsnap.com/s/7pqdVtg5.jpg)|https://thumbsnap.com/7pqdVtg5 (http://[img)

Steering fixing in progress.

https://thumbsnap.com/s/rcTZiYEx.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/rcTZiYEx](https://thumbsnap.com/s/rcTZiYEx.jpg)|https://thumbsnap.com/rcTZiYEx (http://[img)

https://thumbsnap.com/s/AEFFYYXp.jpg[/img]|https://thumbsnap.com/AEFFYYXp](https://thumbsnap.com/s/AEFFYYXp.jpg)|https://thumbsnap.com/AEFFYYXp (http://[img)

Probably a bit late now but the better fix is with bronze bushes and a grease nipple

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/db/0c/f0db0c994cf687bd26ff4843d0cccbbd.jpg)

New bushes in (thanks to Dietmar at Historic Racing in Hamburg for sending these so quickly), new grease in, and steering idler arm put back together -


(https://thumbsnap.com/s/WP2PLcMv.jpg)

 

Hi Gerard
Did you do the idler repairs? or did you supervise Mark...Car looks great. I love the description of the fuel injected car's engines as looking like the insides of a washing machine dumped under the bonnet.
Clarkey

If I tried to supervise any mechanic, comedy would ensue.   I've known Mark for several years and he is by a long way the best car mechanic I have ever met.  So far, no old car can defeat him, despite all of their evil attempts to do so.  He has tamed recaciltrant BL cars, Land Rovers, assorted Italiana, and even motorbikes.  As for me, I barely know which end of a screwdriver you are supposed to hold!  I was in court while all that spannering was happening.  Horses for courses!

Mark is very much opposed to bodging, and whenever I buy an old car he spends time undoing the bodges put in by previous owners, but I persuaded him to do a decent bodge fix on the wheel arch until I get done it done properly, so at least the car is fit to be seen in public. 

On bodging in general, my late father was a production engineer in the car industry, and a practical man who could fix things such as cars and houses, and he said that while a botch is bad, a working bodge can sometimes be OK in some circumstances.  He had many tales of how the worn out tooling of BL production lines in the 1970s led to all sort of factory work arounds to get cars to the dealers - to be fixed on some other balance sheet.   

Mark tends to deplore the way that my Fiat 124 (currently away being welded) has been kept going by bodges by blokes in sheds for many, many years, but ... it is still alive, when almost all other third series RHD Coupes have died.  My Appia when it arrived was a strange combo of bodge and neglect, but mostly neglect.  My Beta is almost bodge-free - it's just old, but it has low miles and is in many ways quite original.  The HF shows little sign of any bodge work in the past, but has done over 100,000 miles so naturally has some tired bits.   

You are lucky to find someone like Mark as my experience of mechanics is they can only work on modern cars as some don't know how to set up the points on cars like ours not their fault. Motor factors are the same my local one promised me a rummage through their NOS of contact points but the next time I went in they had been skipped.
Clarkey

Mark can do modern cars but he prefers to work on old ones.  He has specialist knowledge of classic Minis and of TVRs (He has a TVR), but  he is in my view a very good all round mechanic who understands how 60s and 70s cars work and what they may need.  When he does not know about something he takes the trouble to find out about it.  He is very good at fault-finding and has the patience and skill to find and fix stubborn faults.  His main interest is in working with carburation and ignition settings.   He says that if anyone is looking for work on carbs or ignition on their Lancias he'd be interested in helping.  He is a bit too busy to take on much new general work other than that.   He is based in Worcestershire but travels.

Talking of bodges, back in 1984 I was on my way to a good friends wedding in my 2000 Coupe and the throttle cable snapped. Fortunately the friend who was traveling with me hadn’t yet wrapped his present to the lucky couple and had a roll of sellotape with him which we used to repair the cable.
It got me the 120 mile journey home and was still functioning perfectly there weeks later when I eventually replaced it !

Bob

Ah ha!  Trottle cables.  More below...


Several steps forward, and one step backwards.


Yesterday I drove the car for the first time since a short test drive before I bought it.   The engine and gearing combo are really interesting, and the car has lovely handling.

The car is generally driving well but still has a softish brake pedal.   New rear discs and pads and some work on the rear calipers are on the list.

A change of oil and filter did not reveal any worrying signs of metal in the oil.  The car also has fresh brake fluid and is getting fresh coolant.

The mounting for the handbrake lever had sheered off its baseplate - a previous weld having failed.  The original fracture to the mounting may have been caused by overload deriving from a dodgy cable.  The mounting has now been welded back on to the plate, but a new cable will be fitted when I get one.

This morning the throttle spring or linkage failed or jammed, which made me unpopular with my neighbours as I started the car at about 7am.  The pedal collapsed to the floor and the engine roared wildly before I quickly switched it off.  I had been about to go off quietly,
let the car warm up in a secluded spot down the road, and then go looking for the wiper blade that flew off the car into a hedge whilst I drove back from the fuel station last night.  Lancias, eh?

EDIT:  the throttle cable has snapped off by the eyelet that connects it at the pedal end.  The aviating wiper blade was found in a lane close to home.

Pictures from a brief visit to a local pub and a nocturnal trip to get some ethanol free petrol.  The car now has period style numberplates.

(https://i.ibb.co/T1DNwK4/pub.png) (https://ibb.co/pQ6k1Wf)

(https://i.ibb.co/tbk9T70/pez.png) (https://ibb.co/9qz7kFx)

Ambience -



(https://i.ibb.co/s1w3dJK/dials.png) (https://ibb.co/VCSBcpg)

New throttle cable located on eBay Italia - yay internet!

You are probably already aware and or it may have been covered but if you need to replace the handbrake cable then if it is the same as a Fulvia (insider the disc/hub) you will need to use the hub tool previously discussed to remove the rear hubs. It would make sense to do any work to the rear callipers then as they have to come off anyway to get to the handbrake mechanism

Wise words

Thanks!  The Consortium is kindly sending the hub tool, so hopefully the brake work can be done next week.  Mark the mobile mechanic is here today but doing Appia and Beta stuff.

Here are some photos of the car reflecting on its bad behaviour in waking up the neighbours.   Also a shot showing that the front seats have stood up well since they were re-covered in 1989, but now show one small split on the driver's side.


(https://i.ibb.co/MCQCd4p/hfside.png) (https://ibb.co/S3G3S80)

(https://i.ibb.co/C75WSkS/hfrear.png) (https://ibb.co/Kqjm8M8)

(https://i.ibb.co/kqyjmJW/hfseats.png) (https://ibb.co/GCJyH9b)

BODGE ALERT!

The throttle cable is intact.  I was misled on a quick shuftie by a frayed bit of cable end hanging off at the top.  Someone has fitted a second eyelet to space the cable end. The issue was an old bodge: some fuel pipe that had been used as a cable guide had jammed under the pedal linkage.

QUESTION:  Would you expect to see flex in the brake servo?    Mark is adding a brace for this as it moves a bit, with play at the bulkhead end, and this motion won't help the braking efficiency, and could eventually cause a stress fracture at the bulkhead.  Mark will also investigate whether there is already weakness at the bulkhead.  He notes that the bits of the bulkhead he has seen so far look OK, and notes also that the sills have been welded very well.

2021 is dull.  I did some time travel to April 1975.


(https://i.ibb.co/Bw9dZSy/hfpub.png) (https://ibb.co/nRFZc57)

Early morning driving in the West End.  The vertical alignment of second (up), and third (down) is useful for relaxed town driving.

I paused for photos outside the RAC, and also at Bar Italia in Soho.  "Guarda Toni!  Vera macchina Italiana!  Di Torino come la tua Mama."



(https://i.ibb.co/kqX8RQR/italia.png) (https://ibb.co/j3DMcgc)

The HF now has new rear brake discs and pads.  The car is going well, and this weekend I will take it on its first long distance jaunt - about 400 miles on a round trip to visit my daughter in Norfolk.

A nail did for one of the Firestones on the A4 close to Earl's Court this morning.  The spare was brand new, so on it went, and the car behaved itself on a drive to the North Norfolk coast.  Busy roads all the way.

(https://i.ibb.co/CJ0B2gR/flat.png) (https://ibb.co/LQpS5mV)

Some weak spark issues, and a slight cooling issue, both now fixed.  The car is going pretty well.   Wheel balancing has removed vibrations that were occurring at motorway speeds.

A bit of 70s going on in South Oxfordshire.  This Volvo 1800 ES Automatic is in rough condition but it runs.  The boot is full of tools and parts and the car is evidently a labour of love in progress.  I have seen a near-concours red one of these in the local area recently.


(https://i.ibb.co/WBZRZ5C/volvo1.jpg) (https://ibb.co/h2bTb90)

(https://i.ibb.co/k2Z1WXr/Volvo2.jpg) (https://ibb.co/7th46KT)

Somer is icumen in...



(https://i.ibb.co/PtTkktf/HFsun.jpg) (https://ibb.co/M98dd93)

In Town -

(https://i.ibb.co/wMkWHjH/HFIWM.jpg) (https://ibb.co/KFPqZSZ)

Good to see it out and about.  Much left on the "to do" or "wish" list still?

The main thing is the replacement of the offside rear wheel arch, and repairs to apparently less extensive rusty bits in the front wings, to be followed by a full or partial respray.

The car is using a bit of oil and puffs a bit of blue smoke every now and then, so it might be needing some top end work soon.

Yesterday the car drove to Southampton and back to view a new (old) car purchase - a 1977 Princess 2200 HL.    Lancia, Lotus, Land Rover, Leyland - those are my things! 

That's an "L" of a list. A Princess 2200 is very left field. You'll have to compare notes with Mr Buckley and his Austin 3 Litre passion.

My Dad had a 2200 which as a family we never really rated but it was a reliable work horse.

My father was a Production Engineer in British Leyland, and thus BL cars are very much wired into my system.  I have had various Triumphs, Landies, and a couple of Rovers.  My dad's favourite car was his Princess.  He had it from 1979 to 1983, and in it he drove me to my university interviews in December 1980, collected me a couple of days later (on the journey home we heard the news of John Lennon's death), and - the interviews having gone well - he drove me to university in the Princess in October 1981.

When I got the newly purchased Princess home yesterday after a smooooooooooth journey from Southampton to South Oxfordshire, my 83 year old mum shed a tear when she saw me getting out of the car.  She said that she had seen a ghost.  I gave her a hug and we had a drink in memory of my dad.  Now I have to decide whether when I take my mum to Glyndebourne on Wednesday we go in the HF or in the Princess.

(https://i.ibb.co/WzVJdr4/princess.jpg) (https://ibb.co/jwJXxCP)

 

Been there done that ---transformed the steering

Erm...., is that post perhaps a stray from another thread?

The coolest car at Glyndebourne yesterday (with my mum, my nephew, and his girlfriend to see Rossini's Il Turco in Italia, which was done with a 1950s Italian neo-realist theme, Fiat 500s included).


(https://i.ibb.co/w4qCp1c/HFglynde.png) (https://ibb.co/gJ8wtC4)

How comfortable was the rear seat for your passengers, may I ask?
Cesare

They said that it was fine.  They may have been fibbing, of course!

The car was not super lively with four people and picnic stuff on board.

Livelier two up.  Another trip to the opera, and overnight in East Sussex.



(https://i.ibb.co/2KjSxFJ/hfhotel.jpg) (https://ibb.co/ryZ3YQ9)

It's in danger of becoming known as the "Opera Coupe".

Colour's right -

(http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7100/1333/1600/Seville-Opera-Coupe-1-41.jpg)

Plentiful driving over the last few months have taken their toll: one small engine oil leak, one power steering fluid leak, and two coolant leaks.  All should be easy fixes, but the HF now gets a rest in the barn whilst my Beta takes the strain. 

That's a lovely looking car. I always liked the design of the princess and think it's under-rated. Although from memory, the ones I used to see in the flesh often looked too high on the rear suspension for some reason. Any more pics of your new purchase please?

I am delighted with the Princess, which is a smooth and wafty drive.  The high gearing means that even though it lacks a fifth gear it cruises quietly at 80 on the motorway.  Unlike the Allegro, which was ruined when being industrialised, Harris Mann's design for the Princess was industrialised with few changes, although BL made the mistake of not including the hatchback that Mann had drawn for the car.

Here are some pictures.

(https://i.ibb.co/ryppk3L/wedge.jpg) (https://ibb.co/6sttY8p)


(https://i.ibb.co/5x4GzWC/princessshed.jpg) (https://ibb.co/zHxQLhC)


(https://i.ibb.co/3F82ykc/princessint1.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Zgw56Nx)


(https://i.ibb.co/YfJC60D/princesseng.jpg) (https://ibb.co/zPCM168)


(https://i.ibb.co/LkJVSd6/princessyard.jpg) (https://ibb.co/w0w5yhC)

 

At a local car show with my brother's TR7.

(https://i.ibb.co/4WvHV6c/hftr.jpg) (https://ibb.co/PxXd67R)

The lack of a tailgate is an interesting point. We take a tailgate for granted these days but I recall in the mid eighties opinion was divided in the case of executive cars, specifically the Ford Granada Mk 3 or Scorpio. The argument was that the "executive" in the back seat should remain cossetted while his driver put the suit cases in the boot. The same issue notably applies to the Gamma Berlina.

Rover boldly chose a hatchback for the SD1, which has an enormous load carrying capacity.

Talking of load carrying, holiday time -

(https://i.ibb.co/tHfyWkm/gran-turismo.jpg) (https://ibb.co/x2vVRPC)

Hands up 🙋‍♂️ Bodger/Owner#5 reporting for duty. I’m sure I did it in haste to get the car back on the road after rebuilding it and to avoid further fraying of the cable on the very sharp edges of the bulkhead. It seems to have served its purpose well. It now falls to you to implement a suitable upgrade for the next 10+ years!

Your car already kind of has its own Forum thread from 2010 here…

 http://www.lancia.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=15886d77c23009ba93a06f6f65710a19&topic=3392.0 (http://www.lancia.myzen.co.uk/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=15886d77c23009ba93a06f6f65710a19&topic=3392.0)

And here’s a photo gallery from when I was selling it back to the UK around 2015…

 https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0JGDdyTvGzoFiK (https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0JGDdyTvGzoFiK)

I bought the car in 2005 but timed out on having it ready for the Lancia centenary in Turin in 2006. As it turns out, I doubt it would have been a good idea to attempt the journey to Italy on the basis of only a cosmetic make-over. However after more extensive rebuilding the car ran flawlessly to Trieste for the Flavia 50th in 2010 which was a testament to it and a very satisfying reward for all my work. It also cost me virtually nothing beyond the respray and running costs.

Early in my ownership in Oireland, the car was resprayed in a modern Lancia bordeaux colour with only cosmetic repairs and no structural work required on my account. I will never know but I suspect the paint shop lifted the car on the sills against my specific advice and crumpled one of them ahead of the front b-pillar. Something was mentioned of a repair being necessary there as it was full of filler. I later fibreglassed a small hole in the passenger footwell myself and that rust hole you fixed in the rear arch rings a bell too. A fellow HF owner had black lower side-striping like the originals made up and I fitted some to the car after the respray. I didn’t want white ones.

At the time of the respray I replaced the doors with better HF ones that came with the car and replaced the bonnet with a standard coupe one. Hence the errant bonnet badge which I retained as it was enamel and in quite nice condition.  I went to no end of trouble to align the bonnet so that the chrome trims looked smart. However the doors were a bit of a pain as I only got to first fit them after they had been painted (unmemorably outdoors in the rain) and they never quite sat right but could have been a lot worse. It took over a day per side to rebuild all the innards including the cable window winding assembly but very satisfying when done with new rain channels.

In this and separate events during my ownership, the car was fully dismantled - except for the dash - and reassembled but no engine work was done. Before the respray, I had the rear axle out as the springs sagged badly and one side was broken. Spare springs also came with the car and  I added a leaf to these and was happy with the result which made it sit pleasingly high and also improved its passenger and load-carrying ability. It may have been the adjustment of the panhard rod but I felt the car was always a bit off line at the back end (one purist drew attention to the non-original line of the lower rear wing below the bumper line) and that the tyre to wheel-arch measurements were uneven. I attributed all this to the smack it got around the rear wing area before owner #4. I did my best to align, realign and level it out and learned a lot in the process.

Later I broke the quill shaft in the gearbox so the front subframe came out and everything up front got fully dismantled, cleaned, painted and rebuilt. I had bought a replacement 2000HF spec box on eBay which came in handy. I regretted not replacing more steering and suspension parts with new such as ball joints and bushes but if things looked ok they went back in. Your replacement of the idler box bushes should transform the steering and handling.

I replaced the fuel and brake lines and rebuilt the callipers and master cylinder myself but the brakes were always pants. Again I may or may not have replaced the pressure adjuster to the rear. Knowing what I know now, I’d recommend a professional reconditioning of the callipers and master and replacement of the adjuster. I found fluid in the servo bellows before the master cylinder rebuild.

I have some pictures of all this dismantling and rebuilding which I can post in the same place as the iCloud gallery above if you can see it.

Otherwise and, being somewhat hand built at PininFarina, the car was a delight to dismantle and reassemble with never-ending surprises in the detail of the construction methods.

At one stage I needed to tow a Y10 to a Lancia event so that an overseas visitor could use one of my cars. I bought a bespoke 2000 coupe tow bar from Watling Engineers in St Albans who had one on the shelf for about £120 iirc. Plus postage. Later I went to them looking for a Fulvia Berlina tow bar and I think they wanted £multiples of this to make one up from their jigs. I could be back to them yet as the product quality was great.  When I went to fit the towbar to the HF in a very big hurry on the night before the event, I was awfully happy to find that the fitting holes were already pre-drilled in the chassis and it was just a 30 minute bolt-up job! On enquiring from owner #4 he said he had removed a towbar from the car when he got it so I’m guessing it was also a Watling. Thus the HF ended up towing the same trailer/dolly on which it had first arrived in Ireland in 2005. And that wasn’t the end of its towing career either…

Overall I got great use out of the car and sold it partly because I didn’t have the appetite for doing it all over again and partly because, by 2015, HFs we’re making more than ten times what I had paid for it in 2005. And I needed the money. I drove it to the UK on it’s swansong voyage to deliver it to dealer owner #6 who resprayed it as it is now and re-installed/reupholstered the original seats before moving it on to a LMC member. I think I got a lift home in a friend’s Thema 8-32 but the most unusual thing about that was that I didn’t bring home another Lancia myself!

Alan#2

Hello, and many thanks for your very informative post.   I have been mostly offline for several months and so did not see the post until today.

Sadly, the respray done by the dealer was poor quality - the paint has cracked and flaked.  The car needs another paint job.

I am in Jersey for a month or so, working.  I popped home to London by air for the weekend (doing my best to ignore the curious events going on around some old lady), but on returning to the car in the car park at Jersey Airport today, the throttle cable severed, at the end near the engine.  Sadly, in Jersey it appears that there are no mechanics in cans who have wire and pliers to do jury rigs, at least not on a Sunday; and so the car was low-loadered to the very 1970s hotel in St Helier where I have been staying for the last week or so.  

I may try to splice the cable myself pending finding a new one, but that might (probably would) lead to comedy swearing; so I shall ring the local classic car garages tomorrow and see if one of them can assist.  I don't need to drive the car until Saturday 11th, when I shall be changing accommodation, from a time warp place that makes Fawlty Towers look like Claridge's, to somewhere a bit better.

By the way, some mysterious marine magic transformed the car into a Dinky Toy while it was on the fast ferry from Poole to St Helier a couple of weeks ago.

(https://i.ibb.co/vxGPDKs/hftoy.jpg) (https://ibb.co/TBS8rFK)
upload image (https://imgbb.com/)

In the (sadly dying) Jerriais language (the Jersey version of Norman-French), the word "bocage" becomes "vroncage"  Be careful, because there may be granite walls concealed in the greenery.   Here is the car, warming up, on a cool morning last week.


(https://i.ibb.co/pLv2Wzh/vroncage.jpg) (https://ibb.co/3Cy1fNR)
upload image (https://imgbb.com/)

Why no Voltmeter, Lancia?  Is Magneti Marrelli really more reliable than Agip?

(Some Triumphs, and other BL cars, have voltmeters but no oil pressure gauges "because Castrol more reliable than Lucas")

     When you speak of a time warp hotel in Jersey in disparaging terms, I ask myself why you choose to run a time warp car while you are there. I shall not ask which establishment you are staying in, for fear that it it the same that I remember with affection from two business visits to Jersey a couple of years age as definitely of the 1980s in terms of style and amenities, and comfortable enough, and also offering a warm welcome and good cooking.

I think it is a Bosch - nuff said..... Interesting though that Betas and Deltas had voltmeters but then I think the Alternator was MM

I drive old cars because I like old cars!   This website is all about old cars.  Many of us here love cars from the 1970s and from other past decades.  That doesn't mean that we actually want to live in those past decades.  I remember the 1970s very well, and with a lot of affection, but I don't want to live in the 1970s.  

Nobody could accuse this hotel of having good food!  My comments about the hotel were light hearted.  It's cheap.  Everywhere else was full.  The place is mildly depressing after almost two weeks here.  It's business model undoubtedly works, but that doesn't stop it being dreary.   There's a certain poverty of ambition that the hotel and its loyal regular customers emanate.  Some of the other customers are perhaps only a few years older than me (I am 59), but they seem to have given up on any idea of living life, if they ever had any such idea.  I shall NEVER retire!

On Saturday I move to a large apartment in a rural farmhouse which costs almost nothing a night, for two weeks, and then I have another three weeks or so in a more modern hotel in one of the seaside towns.

Back to the old cars:  The HF is at the local classic car garage, awaiting the arrival from Berlin of a new throttle cable.  Th old one had parted at the engine end and is too frayed and worn out to be repaired.  

The garage is renting me a Mimosa Yellow Triumph Stag (manual with overdrive) for the weekend.


(https://i.ibb.co/qmC7sSB/hfgarfage.jpg) (https://ibb.co/wp7BWky)