1975 2000 HF Coupe

[GerardJPC]

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!

[frankxhv773t]

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.

[Andrew Parker]

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

[GerardJPC]

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.  

[GerardJPC]

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

[Jai Sharma]

Congratulations, that looks lovely

[GerardJPC]

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.  

[frankxhv773t]

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!

[GerardJPC]

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!

[GerardJPC]

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!

[chriswgawne]

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

[GerardJPC]

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...).   

[GerardJPC]

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.

 

[DavidLaver]

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?

[GerardJPC]

Thanks!  Will have to check re snow chains

A few pics