Italian websites that you might find useful, and help in navigating them!

[westernlancia]

Hello everyone

Been meaning to do this for ages - as some of you may know, my 'day job' is writing Italian, French and German textbooks, and it helps a lot with looking for Lancia stuff in Italy (or German and French car parts in those countries, for that matter - but I don't like German and French cars!).

There are a lot of websites out there that are hard to find from an English search engine but quite easy if you use Italian search terms, so what you need to do is exclude the English 'noise' interference and home in on what you're after. I thought people might like to know where to look and how to do it - O.K., you still have to understand a bit of Italian, but most of the words you need are the same as English ('Lancia', 'Thema', etc!).

Before you begin, a good tip is to set Google to search in Italian - that way you filter out all the stuff in other countries that is broadly not what you are looking for. Once you have done that, you want to make sure you pick up sales and spares sites rather than enthusiast sites (nothing wrong with those, but I am talking about looking for cars and parts here).

So you need to put an Italian word with the name of your favourite Lancia, to make sure you end up going in the right direction - e.g. 'vendo' (I'm selling), 'vendesi' (for sale), 'ricambi' (spares), 'motore' (!!), 'paraurti' (bumpers), etc., and then the name of your car (I am looking for a set of S3 Appia bumpers at the moment so I am putting in 'paraurti Appia' every morning - unfortunately 3 squillion other people are looking for them as well, so I'm not getting very far!).

Anyway, here are the best sites I have found:

www.subito.it
www.autobelle.it (used to be www.lanciaflavia.it)
www.passioneauto.it
www.trovit.it
http://auto.yakaz.it
www.bachecaannunci.it ('bacheca' means 'message board', so if you try it with the n ame of what you want it can sometimes be useful)
www.ruoteclassiche.it (ruoteclassiche is a best-selling magazine and its title means 'classic wheels)
http://www.lancia-ardea.it (only if you have an Ardea, of course, but it is a great site!)


If you are after parts there are the usual ones - Cavalitto (www.lanciaricambi.it), Cicognani for rubber stuff (www.cicognaniguarnizioni.it - 'guarnizioni' means 'seals' or 'gaskets'), elvezio esposito, also for rubber stuff (www.elvezio.com), mara for spares (www.mara.it) - and, of course, viva-lancia (www.viva-lancia.com).

Once you are there you will need to look for the search (cerca or ricerca) button, and when you have found that you insert what you are looking for - and, hopefully, bingo!

I hope that's a bit of help - I have been meaning to write it for months but I am usually up to my ears in it and I keep forgetting. If you get half way through the above process and then get stuck, send me an email via the website contact button (I won't reproduce it here otherwise I will get 300 spam emails a day!) - I am happy to help (and advice is free!), but it might take me a while to get back to you because I am usually outside playing with either my cars or someone else's until about 10 p.m!

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

elvezio espsoito

Sorry - typo there! It should have read Elvezio Esposito

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

P.S. - meant to say, if anyone else has any good ones to contribute, feel free!

There are others in my head as well as these but I can't remember them all. Between us we must have a pretty good mental database!

Cheers

Alan

[fay66]

Thanks Alan,
 That's great,
I once found a site that gave technical translation equivilants English to Italian, somewhere along the line it got lost, and I've never been able to find it again, but it was very useful.

Brian
8227

[JohnMillham]

First site offers an Augusta gearbox for €30, which I would be delighted to have!

[Betaboy2.0]

Thanks for this Alan - it is really useful.

Looks like my Friday evening is now taken up!

Cheers

Andy

[Sebastien]

Good list!

Can I add:
http://www.autoscout24.it

Try for example searching for Lancia Flaminia: you will be surprised!

[westernlancia]

Good list!
http://www.autoscout24.it
Try for example searching for Lancia Flaminia: you will be surprised!

Thanks Sebastien - I also use that one, and it works as well if you add .de or .ch or .fr to the end of the autoscout24!

I also use www.mobile.de sometimes, but their Italian branch seems to have merged with eBay.it.

I have also remembered another bloke that was in my head this morning but had escaped - he has now crept back in! It is autoricambi Sassi - they don't have anywhere near as much as Cavailtto, but they are always worth a shot (http://www.autoricambisassi.com/)

Cheers and good luck!

Alan

[westernlancia]

Thanks for this Alan - it is really useful.
Looks like my Friday evening is now taken up!
Cheers
Andy

Thanks Andy - and yes, it's terribly addictive! The problem is that quite often one site leads to another, and the hours fly by!

At least it's winter and dark and cold outside, so all you need is a glass of whatever you like in a glass, and bob's your uncle - much better and less brain-numbing than watching TV!

(;-))

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

I also use www.mobile.de sometimes

Quoting myself here - I know that's a bit sad but I forgot to add something!

On www.mobile.de, you need to put 'Lancia' in the 'Marke' drop-down menu, but if you then leave the 'Modell' menu and all the others blank and click on 'Treffer anzeigen' you will get all the Lancias on the site. Then you need to order it to get the old ones first (there aren't usually all that many, so unless you have an absolutely marked objection to certain ones you might as well let them all come up.

So what you do is, in the white box with a drop-down menu at the top of the list of cars that comes up, select 'Erstzulassung' (date of first registration). Then it will order them with the newest ones first, which is the opposite of what you want (unless you are looking for a New Delta or a Phedra!). So you just click again on 'EZ/BJ' (Erstzulassung/Baujahr - reg. date/build year), which is just below that but still at the top of the list, and when you do that it will reorder them so that the oldest are first. Then you can go down the list until you get to your era.

Sorry this is all so complicated and nerdy - I suppose I need to get out more...

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

First site offers an Augusta gearbox for €30, which I would be delighted to have!

That's amazing! If it looks kosher I can call them if you want. Sounds like a fantastic bargain to me!

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

Thanks Alan,
 That's great,
I once found a site that gave technical translation equivilants English to Italian, somewhere along the line it got lost, and I've never been able to find it again, but it was very useful.
Brian
8227

Thanks Brian - as I said in the message (somewhere!) - if you get really stuck, feel free to email me. I am odd enough to enjoy doing this kind of thing!

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

Try for example searching for Lancia Flaminia: you will be surprised!

Meant to say before - one of the reasons that cars like Aprilias, Appias, etc., are described as 'Flaminia Appias', 'Fulvia Ardeas' or whatever is because the listing tool on the website doesn't have enough capacity, so if you have one of the cars not on their list you have to use one of the ones that are (e.g. Flaminia, Fulvia) and then add the name of the one you are selling to the end of that.

It is very annoying, but it is also quite common among sales websites when older and rarer cars are concerned (and with ferries - I still find it impossible to book my Kappa on a Dover-Calais ferry without pretending that it is a Thema - so far no-one has complained, but one day I am sure I will be kicked off the ferry!).

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

http://www.autoscout24.it

This Ardea is interesting (not because I want to buy it - too far gone for this price, although I would really, really love an Ardea!):

http://www.autoscout24.it/Details.aspx?id=184891294

In the 5th picture it has what looks like a little mini-radiator in front of the standard one on, with 'Tudor' written on it. Tudor were a British company, and I know them as a manufacturer of windscreen washer pumps and reservoirs, but this looks to me like an accessory heater.

Never seen one like it elsewhere, though, and I wonder how it found its way to Italy!

Cheers

Alan

[westernlancia]

http://www.autoscout24.it/Details.aspx?id=182523571

Chugga - are you out there?!

Cheers

Alan