It was a long day, but....

[stuwilson128]

I had my day trip to Amsterdam yesterday and I can now comfirm that the Delta has now been ordered 

I left my house at 1am to get to Liverpool airport for the first Easyjet flight of the day.  By 10:30 I was at Auto Halan, where I was met by Giancarlo Stanco (Melchior, who I had been in contact with up until yesterday, is off on Wednesdays!).  After briefly discussing what I was interested in, Giancarlo showed me various Deltas in different colours and with different options.  While waiting for a 1.9 Twin Turbo to arrive for the test drive, we discused fully everything I want on the car, making a few changes to my initial options list along the way to finally get my ideal car, and for a better price than I had expected   

Once the car had arrived, a quick test drive determined that (for me) the twin turbo is the only one to have!  The car was so reponsive and the torque is phenominal.  At one point, I forgot I was still in third when going round a corner (I thought I had gone down to second).  When I put my foot down again, the car took off.  When joining the motorway while in 3rd, I put my foot down and nearly red-lined the car (it went from about 1500rpm to red-line literally in the blink of an eye)!  On the motorway, I was sat in 6th gear at quite low revs an just pressed the throttle and the car was away.  The car is such that while it has exceptional power and torque, it is also a car that is extremely relaxing to drive.  It will be awesome for the long jouneys.

With the test drive complete, my deposit was transferred online.  The transfer from my bank to Auto Halan took less than 15 minutes.  Needless to say, I am more than impressed at how quick it was by doing an online transfer.  It was almost as quick as the car!

My impressions of Auto Halan is that they could not do enough for me.  They have said that they can do all the necessary work required for the UK regarding altering the headlights and swapping over the rear fog light and reversing light.  They are also looking at the possibility if it can be built in right hand drive, especially as RHD production was cancelled at the last minute.  I do not expect it will be possible without huge cost, but I will post here if it can be done!

I will post more once I have news of how the order is progressing!

[stuwilson128]

Here are a pics from Auto Halan.  Apologies for the quality, but I had to reduce the size on my camera as the originals are too big to post here!

General concensus is that the Delta looks better in dark colours and not so good in the lighter colours, but having seen the lighter colours, it doesn't look that bad.  I think the lighter colours don't photograph too well.

Interestingly, it appears that Lancia are still producing the Thesis, as there was a new one in the showroom.

[stuwilson128]

A few more.

[stuwilson128]

And more

[stuwilson128]

And more

[fensaddler]

That comment about RHD is intriguing - but like you I doubt its possible.  However, if it is, I suspect Auto Halen may have a steady trickle of UK Lancisti beating a path to their door.

[stuwilson128]

That comment about RHD is intriguing - but like you I doubt its possible.  However, if it is, I suspect Auto Halen may have a steady trickle of UK Lancisti beating a path to their door.

To date, I am the first person to buy one for export from Auto Halan.  I did say that if it could be built in RHD, there would be a lot of happy Lancisti in the UK!

On the subject of sales, Giancarlo told me that they have so far sold 150 Delta.

[Harvey]

I'd be very interested in hearing the rest of this story as it unfolds, Stuart.

[sparehead3]

Same goes for the rest of us no doubt Good stuff

[fay66]

well done stuart,
What's the ETA?

Does it have type approval in RHD?, as I would have thought that would govern things, if they have, then I would have expected some parts to be available even if it's only the items to make it legal in the UK, if Lancia was so inclined, LHD as such obviously doesn't worry you, but it would certainly make it easier to sell at some future date if you so desired.
Did they say how they intend fixing the headlights? are RHD ones available?

Brian
8227

[stuwilson128]

well done stuart,
What's the ETA?

Does it have type approval in RHD?, as I would have thought that would govern things, if they have, then I would have expected some parts to be available even if it's only the items to make it legal in the UK, if Lancia was so inclined, LHD as such obviously doesn't worry you, but it would certainly make it easier to sell at some future date if you so desired.
Did they say how they intend fixing the headlights? are RHD ones available?

Brian
8227

I was told that the car should be with the dealer in August, but I have said that I don't want to collect the car until September in order to get a new '59' number!

One of the technicians looked at parts in order to find out about swapping over the rear fog light and reversing light for UK compliance.  They looked further and said it looks as though RHD parts may be available.  As a result, Giancarlo phoned the Dutch importers to find out if RHD build is possible, and if so, at what cost.  Unfortunately, the person who deals directly with the factory was on holiday, so we couldn't get a definitive answer.  As I said in an earlier post, the question was being asked since the decision not to sell Lancia in the UK was made at the last minute, so we thought that some UK spec parts may have been produced already.  I don't expect it to be possible to build it in RHD at the present time, but as you say, LHD doesn't bother me.  Regarding headlight and fog/reversing light conversion, Giancarlo only said that they could get the 'kit' to carry out the conversion and gave a price so that I can compare to their price to quotes from garages in the UK to undertake the job. Other than that, I didn't ask how they would be converted.

As for selling in the future, I think it will be like the Lybra and I won't want to sell it 

[peterbaker]

Do we know whether Fiat is producing Deltas for other RHD markets. In other words is it just UK that's blackballed?

[stuwilson128]

As far as I am aware, it remains all RHD markets that remain affected.  Looking at Lancias website, there are no RHD countries listed when you go to select a country.

[fensaddler]

Think that is right.  As I understand by about October last year it was clear from those inside the industry that Fiat had not started on the tasks that would be needed to ready the car for RHD production - the work with parts suppliers to spec and agree the bespoke RHD parts, for example, and particularly to begin to place orders and schedules for those parts.  We know, because they have been spotted, that RHD pre-production cars had been made, so the engineering of the car was complete (and perhaps even the Type Approval work??), so it looks as if the halt was called just at the point where they would have begun to plan and place orders for the RHD production process.

[stuwilson128]

I have just had my first update on the production for the car.  It is due to be built in the week commencing 22 June    I haven't heard anything about the possibility of RHD build, so take it that it is not possible at the moment.  From my point of view, this is not a problem!