Lancia Fulvia 1.3HF ...

[inaglasshouse]

Good bang for buck on that ride height correction! Especially if you found a use for the gravel afterwards

Looking good there Andy, enjoy.

Cheers, Richard.

[hot66]

looks much better Andy

[KS]

Stop. Writing. About. Fulvias. OK?

[Lightweight_911]

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Took the opportunity to take it for a voluntary MOT last week:



Passed with flying colours - the only comment from the tester was about the small front plate ...

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[KS]

Damn, that looks tiny!

[Lightweight_911]

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I think my phone has exaggerated the size difference somewhat though ...

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[911hillclimber]

Was the front plate a verbal comment or an advisory?
Ride height came out well!

[Lightweight_911]

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Just verbal - he makes the same comment when I take any of my 'old' cars there (they all have the same size front plates) but I usually carry a full size plate in the boot ...

They do all of the MOT's for Paul Matty & tend to be a bit more 'flexible' on non safety-related items - I think they just like having something in that's a bit different.

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[bjmullan]

Yes get out and drive, talk of froze in Scotland and that means only one thing.....salt. BTW, love the car Andy

[911hillclimber]

Andy, I think I know the Station.
The garage I use has the same outlook, but nothing mech or body gets through if no good.

My place reckons he has not seen a drop off of classics having an MoT, exemption has made no difference.
Be nice in Scotland now...

[impmad2000]

Love it Andy

[Lightweight_911]

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It's amazing what you can find out with a bit of persistence/determination - with the help of the internet* ...

As mentioned earlier, my 1.3HF had been owned by its second owner (in France) for 37 years before being sold/exported to a collector in the Netherlands in 2008.

Unfortunately there was very little info provided relating to the car from its time in France - other than a copy of the original French 'Certificat d'Immatriculation' (registration document) with the owner's (then) address.

Although it seemed unlikely that the previous owner still lived at the same address 50 years later (!!), I had to start somewhere, so sent a letter - remember those ? - requesting any info ...

Although I'd included my telephone number, email address, etc I heard nothing.

I repeated the same process for each of the other addresses I could find for people with the same surname in that area of France - luckily relatively few.

After ~ 3 months I had received precisely zero responses - in spite of requesting that the recipient of each letter respond via email even if just to say that they were not related to the previous owner of my car. I had even used my 'schoolboy French' to write the contents in both French & English - all to no avail.

I had now exhausted my list of contacts with the same surname living in that small area of France & had more or less accepted defeat when ...

... 'out of the blue' I received a small package through the post bearing a French postmark.

It turned out that one of the letters I'd sent found the previous owner's grandson who, luckily, still lived in the same area.

To cut a long story short, although his grandfather had died back in 2015 he had a 'box of papers' relating to various interesting cars that his grandfather had owned (including several Ferraris) - amongst which were the Fulvia's original handbook (complete with some hand-written notes) & a couple of old photos !
















* For you 'younger' members, just imagine what this process was like before the internet ...

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[TimB]

Congratulations Andy, nothing beats the discovery of some original 'pre internet' information........priceless!

[impmad2000]

Brilliant Andy. Congratulations on the success.

[210bhp]

Well done Andy. Persistence pays off and it’s nice to know there are great people out there willing to help complete strangers. Always nice to connect your car to the past giving it a bit of ‘personality’. Then there is the thrill of your detective work paying off. Great result!

A trip to France in due course to see and thank the grandson and a few photos together in the cars previous location (for so many years) would round things off nicely and a nice touring holiday for you.

Regards
Mike