Excellent rhd Fulvia Berlina GT for sale

[chriswgawne]

Somewhat reluctantly we have decided to sell our Series 1  Fulvia Berlina GT Reg No RMV 25F
I have just packed it away for the winter as we will use our old petrol Landcruiser (332k miles! – the car that refuses to die) in bad weather here and when the roads are salty and on other days for the next 4 months we will use our Fulvia Berlina GTE or our B12. Therefore the GT is really superfluous going forward.
The car is a 818.211 variant with the 818.202 series 1231cc engine and a 4 speed floor change and there is a thread about its time with us on this forum with various photos and more detail entitled ‘ I said I would never buy another Fulvia Berlina….’.
This car is about as close to a brand new unmolested right hand drive UK spec S1 Berlina GT as I think you will ever find. The body is original and perfect with excellent bodywork paint ( Lancia blue) and underneath it is spotless. There is absolutely no evidence of any corrosion anywhere on the body or the subframe and the car was rustproofed from new. The beige interior is perfect with the original polythene covers to the door panels and the seats had fabric covers since new. I have removed these. There are new front Britax seat belts. The headlining is perfect and unstained (the car seems to have never been used by a smoker), none of the glass is scratched and the replacement wind deflectors I have fitted to the front doors are in good condition.
The car has only done just over 34k miles from new and to all intents and purposes has had just one owner before me. I acquired the car from Portugal in the Spring of this year where it had been in dry dark storage since 1988 with an engine problem. The owner of the car passed away a few years ago and there were obviously tussles within his family as to what to do with the car. What is definitely the case is that Les Skeet (the deceased owner) was a real Fulvia Berlina fan and a good motor engineer as well. The car attended the Fulvia 25 at Goodwood and he was well known to older members of the LMC.
I have the original sales invoice for the car dated 20.11.67. from the supplying Lancia dealer, Langley Motors of Thames Ditton, Surrey and as far as I can make out it was exported to Portugal and registered there in 1986. I have all the Portuguese paperwork.  The Portuguese registration was cancelled when we bought the car and luckily for us, the original UK registration RMV 25F had never been cancelled so obtaining a new V5 for the car was very straightforward.
Mechanically the car is standard very much as it came out of the factory apart from the following:
The original Solex 32PHH carburettors have been changed for a pair of  brand new lovely Dellorto 35DHLB carbs which I had on the shelf.
There is an electric radiator cooling fan fitted with manual control and also a new ‘bulb’ thermostat  which sits in the tophose. There is a telltale green light on the dashboard showing when the fan is running. The original mechanical fanbelt driven fan comes with the car.
There is an under-dashboard switch which originally controlled an electric fuel pump which I have removed. The switch is live and the electric pump feed is still available in the engine bay.
The previous owner fitted new Fulvia 1600HF rear number plate lights to the rear panel in addition to those set in the bumper for some reason.
There is an electric washer pump wired into one of the empty dashboard ‘piano key’ switches. This pump will only work when the wipers are switched on.
New Bloster steering lock fitted

The engine which was in the car when it arrived with me is not the actual original engine although it is the correct specification being an 818.202 series 1231cc engine from a very slightly earlier Fulvia GT which was also owned by the then owner of our car. The head was off this engine as was the sump and it was easy to quickly draw the pistons to inspect the pistons, rings, bores and bottom end. All looked fine so I fitted new valves + springs, new timing chain, new water pump etc etc as well as the Dellortos and its runs very sweetly.
I can’t quite understand the reasons for this change and the previous owners family can’t help me on this but I have the original engine number 2510 which is available separately but completely disassembled. The bores are fine as are the standard pistons and I have bought a full set of correct 1st oversize rings plus a timing chain and a set of small ends from Cavalitto. This spare engine also comes with a pair of almost unused Solex 32PHH carbs.

A summary of the other mechanical work completed on the RMV 25F  this summer is as follows:
New or s/s lined brake cylinders all round
New brake pads ex Cavalitto all round
New OE brake discs all round
All flexible brake pipes replaced                                                               
Recon 19mm brake master cylinder                                                                       
Good slightly used adjustable Koni shock absorbers on front                                                   
All steering arm joints renewed renewed                                                                                 
New clutch friction plate and cable
New water pump
Newly rebuilt mechanical fuel pump
New FIAMM twin horns
New complete exhaust system from manifold backwards                                       
5 X new Falken Sincera SN832 165/80 R14 tyres
New fuel tank sender
New underbonnet water & fuel hoses throughout
New water thermostat
New battery
A good pair of period ARCA wing mirrors

After all this work was completed I took the car to a local garage where there is a very competent Fulvia mechanic, Giuliano who drove the car and checked the various things which would be checked if the car was having its Italian MOT (il revisione). He was very happy with the car.
The only thing I didn’t do in the Spring which I probably should have done in hindsight is to have the fuel tank cleaned out properly inside. It did still have fuel in it when the car arrived so I drained it, flushed it and then fitted an extra clear plastic disposable inline filter in the engine bay upstream of the pump and then carried on with something else. This disposable fuel filter continues to collect small amounts of debris but its very visible and the filter is easy to replace so I will persist with this now as the amount of debris is minimal now.
We have very much enjoyed driving a few hundred miles locally and the car has attracted many favourable comments when parked but it needs to be driven regularly more often than we believe we will be able to in the future.
The car is currently at our house in NE Italy near Padova ( an easy drive back to the UK?).
Price £12k

[chriswgawne]

This Fulvia GT RMV 25F is withdrawn from sale.
Chris

[chriswgawne]

The reason I withdrew this from sale after 9 days last November was because of pressure and advice from my son. During those 9 days there were 2 enquiries, one of which was a serious one.
The pressure was that he had recently driven and really liked it and wanted me to keep it for him when he had somewhere in W London to garage it.
And his advice was that I had underpriced it ! He told me that a similar S1 Fulvia Sedan (not sure of the model but I think a GT)  had been on sale at a German dealer last summer for €17k and had sold and then I remembered bumping into my friend, a well known Dutch Lancia trader and garage owner in May last year at the Reggio Emilia autojumble and he told me how pleased he was to have bought a very good 2C in Milan for €12k. He subsequently sold it obviously at a profit.
So the sensible thing to do at that time was withdraw the car from sale.

Alex has now changed his mind and wants the B12 and we have a new project on its way so I need some space. The Fulvia GT has hardly been used this year  so the car is for sale again at the same price as before.
The only difference to spec is that it now has a rare large 'ball' 4 speed gear knob with the gear positions shown in blue like the later 5 speed cars.
Chris

[chriswgawne]

This car is now sold.
Chris