Fulvia 2C for 2013?

[LanciAlan]

Hi Alan,
Didn't realise you had a 2c, any details and photos please.
If you need any help I'd be happy to oblige.
Brian 8227

Its the ex-Peter & Lin Baker and ex-Lee Proudfoot car - so its one you probably know.  Fundamentally great, but needs some serious TLC to lower external panels - sills, door bottoms etc.  A stonking engine, I gather, and from what I recall, a very nice interior.

Thanks Chris,
didn't realise Lee had sold it.
I first came across OPD 37E in Michael Newberry's Collection when I went to his Lancia Picnic Day about 1996/7, it, along with Robin Lacy's Lovely 2c CTA 762C that was at the meeting, were the reason for me deciding that I would look for a 2c that culminated in my purchasing "Fay" in 1997.
At the time OPD 37E was in pristine condition , later on it was purchased by Cesaere Ferrari from Ealing, Cesaere had a disaster sometime later when he blew a hole in a piston, I offered him one of my spare original pistons left over after I'd previously had to have "Fays" 1091cc engine rebored and fitted with oversize pistons, after a ring broke and scored a bore badly, which resulted in a complete engine rebuild.
However it turned out that OPD 37E already had oversized pistons, so my standard piston was of no use, I believe at that point it acquired the 1298cc engine.
After that I lost touch with Ceasare as I think he dropped out of the Lancia world.
Sometime later peter bought her off of Ebay? no longer the pristine lady she used to be, and also with a missing chrome horn ring, which is where my spare one that was donated resides.
Photo is about 1998 at Goodwood Track Day when owned by Cesaere.
Brian
8227

Hello Brian

I meant to say hello to you at the AGM and have a quick look at Fay even though at that stage I had nothing to compare to it as I only got my 2C on the following monday. With delivering the Flaminia the AGM was all a bit of a daze - I think I only had one beer all weekend!

Yes, the Newberry/Ferrari car previously known to you and as described by Chris above is the result of my trawl for something to bring home on the empty trailer. I don't recall seeing it on eBay at any stage in recent years but that may be as I was not particularly looking for one.

I am very pleased with it and am making it my project for Fulvia 2013 but you would be sorry to see its condition now. I will post a few more pictures of my own but you can see it in this set by Lee Proudfoot (current pics at bottom of page 2):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80688018@N00/sets/72157606371734891/with/2349496211/

As the later pictures show, the bottom 6 inches are now so bad you would wonder how it was capable of road use even as recently as 2008. I can only assume that its 10-years spent in the Newberry collection following its import from Cyprus via Greece (as I understand from Lee) extended its natural life but that it began to deteriorate in real time once again when Mr Ferrari put it into regular use. However it is very straight, complete and mostly original apart from the bigger engine and the electrical modifications made for rally use. The exterior trim is all particularly good.

No doubt I will be in touch about one thing and another but don't expect a perfect or even faithful restoration like your own car as I have some pretty radical ideas for it but I think it will be a good candidate for Fulvia 2013 whatever happens and at least it will live to see another day.

Current needs include a front bumper and the black bits of the dashboard - I know you re-fashioned some of yours but I would be optimistic of sourcing these on the continent. The main  parts seem to be ambidextrous as regards LHD and RHD? Can't really think of what else it might need - I presume Bill Lewis is the man for sills and arches?

Regards

Alan

Hello Alan,
Sorry I missed you too at Cheltenham but I was only there for the sunday, I'd loved to have shown you around "Fay", I'm hoping I can put enough money together so that I can get Alan Wesson to do a bit of tidying for me, it's now 12 years since I put her back on the road, one job is the bottom of the front passenger door, very annoying, as about 6 years ago I had the Fiat Dealer in Bedford in 2006 cut the bottoms 3 inches out of both front doors, replace the section, paint, and antirust inside the doors, the drivers side is still ok but the passenger door is going again
Sorry to see poor old OPD in the condition she is now in, the underbonnet fire Lee had certainly couldn't have helped with doing other necessary jobs, and I suspect that she has never had any major work to the lower body up to now.
However, you'll be pleased to know that from below the silver facia panel, all the padding is the same as series 2 Berlina, I only found out when idly pouring through the Tavoli one day a couple of years ago, to find the part numbers for series 1 ans 2 were the same, I'd been looking around for the thin pad that runs from the air vent one side, under the silver panel and the instrument cluster to the other air vent for years, without any luck.
You would be unlucky looking for the lower crash pads and glove box lid on the Continent as all of them are specific RHD or LHD, ( I have a LHD one to prove it!) look at the sides of the Glove box lid, one side is vertical the other is angled, on LHD it is on the opposite side of the lid, and this affects the rest of these panels.
If you look at a series 2 Berlina dash it looks totally different from series one, but it's only above the padding I've mentioned that it changes, the rest of it is the same.
I have a set of the knee level ones, so if you need them please let me know.
I see that the offside of your front bumper is badly damaged, if you know anyone who can weld stainless steel my original bumper was damaged on the nearside end but the rest of it is OK, so if you want it it's yours, I bought a refurbished one from Cavellito about 10 years ago,  Jack Romano brought it back from Turin for me on a plane, telling them it was a pair of skis!
Jack got his own back a couple of years later when we went to Turin on another trip which included calling in at Cavellito's for more bits, I asked Jack if I could return the favour, which resulted in 4 of us carry one Gamma front Disc Rotor each in our hand luggage, boy, were they heavy
If you need anything give me a ring, I haven't got a vast range of spares, but at least it's all 2c related.
What is the condition of the dash top crash pad? mine was in a terrible state as all the foam had turned to dust, I had one made but it wasn't right, and I eventually found one through a friend in Holland.
Nearly all the exterior brightwork is stainless steel, but do look after it as it's near impossible to get hold of, but I have most of a spare set if you're stuck anytime.
Door handles go really bad and are also hard to get hold of, I had the last two new ones that Cavellito had about 5 years ago.
If you have trouble with the gear linkage ( the original bushes break up) I got about a dozen from Cavellito, I gave a set to a friend in Holland when their AA had to do a temporary repair to his with a champagne cork and I have a few spare.
Finally out of the three 2C's that I know off, two now reside in Ireland as that was where Robin Lacey's CTA 762C finished up a few years ago.
 Nearly forgot! I never had to have any panels made but I'd certainly say from all I've heard that Bill Lewis is your man, although original panels still turn up, mainly in Italy.

Brian
8227

Hi Brian

I've sort of moved this to a new thread as it sprouted out of the Flaminia/Aurelia discussion that sprouted out of my Flaminia for sale ad. I think the Goodwood pic upsized quite well if I only knew how I did it. And here is the Monte one referred to subsequently by David Laver. As it seemed a bit out of shape, I've widened it by 15% and it looks a bit less impossible/dramatic now:


I also took the liberty of revising your reference to the white car's reg. which is OPD 37E (unless you also know of an OPD 111E floating around which would make 4 2Cs that you now know!).

Many thanks for your kind offer of dash panels and bumper which I will follow up in due course. A cut and shut job sounds like a good approach to bumper conservation, maybe with a covering strip up the middle like on some Lancias of the period.

Good to know also that the lower half of the dash (incl knee/crash pads?) is common with S2 - there is an S2 for parts on eBay at the moment but it is quite rough, not cheap and the dash seems broken. My worst knee/crash pad is the driver's side which someone has repaired with builder's foam. The top section of the dash is externally intact apart from a few cracks but it the black shell is brittle and the internal foam has obviously disintegrated - just waiting for someone to put a finger through it basically.

I haven't come across Robin Lacey's car or even heard word of it over here at all (at all) yet. If you know of only 3, then there can't be many more around. I knew it was an unusual car but this makes me think I should be as sympathetic as possible in my restoration efforts.

Gear shift is a bit vague but works and I have so far only casually observed the linkages on the front bulkhead. I presume Fay is also column shift? Took me a while to figure out as I never used column shift before. I like it but I am wondering to myself (without giving away too much of my plans) if it can be adapted to control a 5-speed box. I don't see why it couldn't unless there is a selector "gate" to be overcome on the column end or unless the 4-speed and 5-speed boxes have a different selector arm arrangement at the gearbox end.

The fire damage to brake system and clutch/accelerator cables has been largely repaired by Tanc Barratt so that will stand to the car and to me in terms of refurbishment.

Door handles don't bother me too much so long as they work and can be got off the car for painting - I guess the latter is the greater challenge if, like Fulvia Coupes I have experienced, the threaded mounting pins snap off as soon as you look at them.

Nothing further occurs but to maintain the continuum of its history to date I've added some pics of the car, firstly as it was when in the Newberry collection (very top above) and as found in 2011 (below)...

Alan

[sparehead3]

Alan, Lee - that car is currently in the database under Lee's ownership. It'd be great (Lee) if you could transfer ownership over to Alan - you should both then have your own 'copy' of the car details and are free to amend them. The database will know it as one vehicle (even when it gets a new number plate in Ireland). I've tested this feature in the past but there's nothing like a real world example

[sparehead3]

Ok, I'll add a footnote to that - Lee has already ended his ownership so Alan should be free add the vehicle and the system should pull through the car as Lee had it!

[LanciAlan]

Alan, Lee - that car is currently in the database under Lee's ownership. It'd be great (Lee) if you could transfer ownership over to Alan - you should both then have your own 'copy' of the car details and are free to amend them. The database will know it as one vehicle (even when it gets a new number plate in Ireland). I've tested this feature in the past but there's nothing like a real world example

Ok, I'll add a footnote to that - Lee has already ended his ownership so Alan should be free add the vehicle and the system should pull through the car as Lee had it!

Hi Steve

I will catch up with this during the week - I need to do a job on all my cars for the database as most came from the UK and have good histories.

Alan

[sparehead3]

Ok, Cool. If they already exist in the database then put them in with a UK reg first and then swap it to your new reg and the system will know them as the same vehicle.
Otherwise, I can manually link them together if the UK ownership subsequently appears.

[fay66]

Alan,
Thanks for changing over to a 2c Thread.
I wondered where the reference to OPD 111E came from as it didn't ring any bells with me either, until I looked at the 2000 Register of owners and their cars to find OPD 111E is listed as Michael Newberry's 2c, which is clearly incorrect, as all the photos I have show it as OPD 37E, can't understand why I haven't picked up on that one before
Regarding the bumper, shouldn't be necessary to join in the middle, all you need to do is cut the nearside end off of your bumper as they are all welded at that point, and add it on to the remains of mine.
If you have a look at this early photo of "Fay" and myself you can see the damage, this bit eventually fell off!
CTA 762C is owned by Bill Shannon who lives in the North but I can't remember where, but I do have his old phone number if you want it, assuming he still lives where he used to, I've included some pretty poor quality photos of the restoration he sent me, as well as a couple from when it was still in the UK and local to me, before being sold to Bill.
Nice photo of Peter on the Historic Monte, don't think I've ever had "Fay" leaning that much even on the Fiat Test Track at La Mandria!
"Fay" also has a column gearchange which is pretty precise, so I would suspect the bushes in the linkage, most of the linkage is individually adjustable; I don't know of anyone trying to add a fith gear to the column change and I'm not sure if it's possible, although a 5 speed on the floor is possible, but if I were thinking of going that way I'd use the much nicer 4 speed floor change box from a series 1 coupe, which would go nicely with the 1298cc engine and was basically the set up of the Series 1 GT Berlina, one problem is that the final drive ratio on the 2c only gives 15mph per 1000 rpm which is about right for the 1091cc engine, although I sometimes find myself looking for another gear at 75mph, but a higher ratio would certainly be a better bet with the 1298cc engine, with the extra power of the bigger engine it must be revving it's nuts off
A friend in Holland put a higher diff in his 2c but as Holland is what you might call flat it didn't cause him any problems, but I'd be wary of doing so in "Fay" with some of the hills here.
Brian

[fay66]

More,
I couldn't find the photo with the damage to the end of the bumper.
But if you fancy something different, and a bit of open air motoring! Dutch police confiscated this one as it didn't have type approval.
Note that OPD 37E in the rear photos when in Michael Newberry's collection doesn't have the Lancia Fulvia script only the 2c badge, "Fay" did have the script and 2C badge but they were badly pitted, shortly after Cesaere bought OPD 37E I received a parcel from him, when I opened it inside was a beautiful Lancia Fulvia Script cut from blank stock rather than a marzak casting, while visiting Turin he had bought 2 of these from the Biscaretti Museum, one for himself (now on OPD 37E), and very kindly one for me, as he knew mine was in poor condition. While visiting a Classic Car & Bike show in 2001 at Oporto Portugal, I was browsing the autojumble stalls and was astounded when I spotted a brand new old stock 2C badge on a stall.
He only had the one, and no other Lancia bits whatsoever :)talk about a find as I've never seen another since.  
Brian

[peterbaker]

We were travelling downhill on snow when the track suddenly went left. I went straight on and smote a low wall with my eyes closed. luckily only the bumper took impact, we didn't stop as were were running late. After the next control I discovered the missing quarter bumper. Later when parked up on the Quay in Monte Carlo a young man who has been spectating on the Col handed us back the missing part. I may still have it if it helps? I also have a selection of Sedan parts.

[chriswgawne]

We had a lhd ex South Africa lhd Fulvia 2C back in the 70's and early 80's and in fact it was Jacky's first car which she learned to drive on. There uis a story about buying the car and then subsequently talking to Harry Manning about it but thats another story.  A real Q car fitted with Michelin XAS tyres which was perfect for transporting 3 young children, pram (remember Silver Cross?) etc around but sadly some good in an Alfasud hit the rh front wheel at speed writing off his car and cracking our subframe.
I kept the car inside  wondering if I would ever rebuild it and replaced it with a 5 speed rhd Fulvia Sedan Srs 2 which was a fine car but not as nice to drive as our original.
One day some years later Michael Newberry ( who I had then sold our Flaminia 3CGTL to recently) phoned me to ask me if I would sell the bootlid (or it may have been the bonnet) off the 2C which he had seen at the back of my workshop as he needed one for the restoration of his Fulvia Srs1 Sedan. I said I would (for £20 I recall) but that he would have to take the rest of the car as well as once I started breaking it up there was no way I would then restore it! Somewhat surprised he agreed and some years later at one of his picnics I saw the remains of our car (RDP322R from memory).
So, 'our' car lives on I think as part of the white car?

As an aside, our alloy Fulvia Sport is OPD23E joining the 'Fulvia OPD family'. 
Chris
PS I thought the front and rear bumpers were one piece?

[fay66]

Chris,
I remember seeing the sorry remains, what little there was of it on the left hand side of Michaels drive opposite his workshop.
Like yourself I think 2c's are a much more capable car than many give them credit for as the odd passenger in mine has found out!
Your quite correct in that the bumper looks like it's one piece, but in fact it was manufactured from two ends (corners) and one centre piece. both my old bumper that the end fell off of, & my current bumper that came from Cavellito are manufactured the same.

Brian
8227

[LanciAlan]

Someone I know is looking at this 2C for sale in Australia - it would probably be a better place to start for 2013 ...

   

http://www.carsales.com.au/all-cars/private/details.aspx?Cr=1&R=11120301&keywords=&trecs=2&__sid=132EAE242283&__Ns=pCar_RankSort_Int32|1||pCar_PriceSort_Decimal|1||pCar_Make_String|0||pCar_Model_String|0&__Qpb=1&tsrc=allcarhome&__Nne=15&seot=1&__N=1216%201246%201247%201252%201282%204294964705%204294964699&silo=1011

By way of an update on my own white car, the subject of this thread, I have arranged with Bill Lewis to make up wing/wheelarch sections and such other panels as it may need. As Bill has not made many 2C panels before, he has no buck in stock. Thanks to Brian Hilton who kindly agreed to provide "Fay" as a template. However it seems the "measuring up" will take longer than just a single visit so I am bringing my car over to Bill en route to the NEC in November and leaving it with him for a while. Another trailer roadtrip! Ironically, the last trip involved collecting the car from quite near Bill's so I could have left it there then.

Bill also enquired particularly whether I had someone lined up to fit the panels as he reckoned an inexperienced person could get into some trouble with buckling/warping panels since both the car itself and the metal he uses are quite thin. He mentioned that he has a friend about 20 miles away who is used to this work so I will look into that too .... and the 2000 Sedan apparently lying disused near his friend's workshop.

Towing in the UK is still presenting me with problems as it seems my car dolly is, strictly speaking, permitted only for use in the recovery of broken down cars and not for routine car transport. Hiring a full car transporter at daily rates to work around this restriction is a bit of an added cost and a logistical pain.

As it happens, I may end up making a bespoke 2C transporter trailer myself in this case since I am thinking of reducing the car to a rolling shell before I transport it to the UK in case it ends up staying there to have work done. But I could go further to facilitate the body restoration and make it a bare shell for which I could make a simple 2-wheel trailer. With a bare shell on a 2 wheel trailer I would be prepared to argue the toss with any road traffic officer that it is, strictly speaking, no longer a a towed car and that it certainly has no wheels on the ground!

[fensaddler]

This is my favourite Aussie car spotting site, and well worth casual perusal - there is some fantastic stuff on there.  This Fulvia looks very nice, and the price is very reasonable.  I'll be intrigued to know where it goes, whether it stays down under or goes elsewhere, as it looks lovely.  My routine searches are much more prosaic - I'm keeping an eye on the market for the Suzuki Kizashi and Mitsubishi ASX as a daily driver, and something like a mk4 Golf for Sharon.  On the other hand, the ASX may be what Sharon drives during the week, and I'll get an MX5 for the run to the station...

My Delta is, I think, en route through the Suez Canal, and we fly out in 8 days time, so what is happening in Aus is increasingly assuming greater importance than what happens here...

[LanciAlan]

Better the Suez Canal than Somali Pirates getting their hands on your Delta ....

[fay66]

Alan,
It isn't in fact a 2c it's a Normale, and while they are the purest Fulvia Berlina they are not exactly a ball of fire, but if you can live with the performance they are very nice.
The Normale although it had 1091cc engine only turned out 58 BHP @ 5800rpm, 7.8:1 compression Ratio,
Max Torque was 8.4 Kgfm @4000 rpm, and had a single twin choke downdraught (Compound) Carburettor. It is being sold with the twin chike solexes but while this will improve the performance it will still not be up to the same level as a 2c.
2c has 71bhp @ 6000rpm 9:1 Compression Ratio and has 2 x  Twin Solex C32 PHH horizontal carburettors.
At the same time the gear ratios were changed and the subframe mounting points revised.
Although "La Lancia" doesn't say so, I've always been under the impression that there were changes to the rear seat to give a better seating position at the same time, and that there were also changes to the instruments.
An easy way to tell is that Normale was the only Fulvia Berlina to have the front and rear overriders and there wasn't a 2c badge on the rear panel, it also seems to be minus the left front indicator and the rear carpet, although rubber mats were standard spec originally.
Surprised no photos of the engine compartment or the boot?
I think that Normale was actually slower than the Appia that it had replaced.
The 2c was bought in to answer the demand for extra power, and the 2c superseded the normale as the standard Fulvia Berlina.

Brian
8227
 

[LanciAlan]

Hi Brian

You are of course quite right. I forgot about the particular meaning of "2C" and its lineage almost as soon as I had learned them and was simply using the term to describe a car that looked broadly like mine/ours.

You can have some "fun" classifying mine when it emerges with a 1600 engine, 5-speed box, alloy wheels, girling brakes, highback seats, lower suspension, Fulvia Sport bonnet stripes and a sound system. At least thats the plan. I've been told I have to keep the colour white though.

Do you know if Fulvia sedans ever came with tinted glass, as in, the light green tint seen on continental models of some cars, including Lancias such as the 2000?

Alan