Lancia Fulvia Coupe

Lancia Fulvia S3 Coupe (simonscars.co.uk)

Back during the early 2000′s, I came across a 1976 Lancia Fulvia Coupe S3, the previous owner had fitted a roll hoop and classic styled bucket seats as well as a very sporty Momo 3 spoke steering wheel. The car was in very good condition, a view backed up by the extensive folder of receipts for body panels and other work done on the car.

Unfortunately, I had a bit of a mishap and rolled the car a few months after I’d bought it on the way home from Shelsley Walsh. This brought about the end of our short friendship but in that time I learned a lot about it and what an enjoyable car it was to drive.

The Lancia Fulvia Coupe is quite an interesting car for several reasons. The UK version (pictured above) had the outer pair of the twin head lamps raised to comply with UK regulations which gives it a more aggressive look than the European production model. The engine in my car was a 1298cc (77mm bore) V4 design by Zaccone Mina. Built with a 13° V, canted over at a 45° angle (shown in the picture below), producing 90bhp at 6000rpm. The car came with a 5 speed ‘dogleg’ gearbox with Girling disc brakes fitted all round on the Series 2 Coupe onwards as opposed to the Dunlops found on the first series. Some production versions of the car were fitted with a 1584cc engine and badged as the ‘HF’ and painted to replicate the rally car of the day.

For a small car with sporting pretensions, it was surprisingly roomy, but it’s physical size and the pokey little engine made it great fun to drive. Another point to make about the engine is that it came fitted with a pair of Solex twin choke 35 C carbs, which did nothing to help fuel economy, but gave it suburb performance for the small engine. Performance that would see it capable of holding 85mph comfortably on the motorway and a reported top speed of 105mph and with 165×14 Michelin ZX it was almost impossible to find it’s limits in wet or dry conditions (although I would dispute that – dabbing the breaks on a left hand curve over a crest seems to work – LOL).

I had actually bought one of the very last Fulvia Coupes that came off the production line, a 1976 S3 and I was tempted to have a go at hill climbing in one of the classic car classes, but alas, it never happened.  My car had it’s little chinks but all-in-all I have to say it was one of the most fun-to-drive cars I’ve owned – And I’ve owned a fair few! I would definitely have another given the chance, the thing is, your looking at in excess of £10k for a good one. I paid £3500 for mine, but that was back in 2003/4.

The Lancia Fulvia Coupe S3 is definitely worth a good look if you’re after something for a fun weekend drive, room for your weekend luggage and plenty reliable and comfortable enough for a weekend trip to the coast. It’s also capable of providing you with a competitive car for classic hill climbing and/or sprinting, or even with it’s pedigree, some classic road rallying.

The ‘dogleg’ gearbox might take a little getting used to if you’ve never used one, but that won’t take long if you drive it around town for a morning, but you’ll be in 4th gear before you get to 62mph on the more open roads. That said, you’ll love the way it handles with it’s front wheel drive and it’s simplistic suspention, the superbness of which proved by it’s rallying prowess. A ‘dead’ axel suspended upon semi-elliptic leaf springs and controlled by telescopic dampers married to an anti-roll bar and a Panhard rod takes care of things at the rear of the car, while the front end is controlled by independent double wishbones and telescopic dampers connected to a single transverse semi-elliptic leaf spring and anti-roll bar held in a sub-frame with the engine and gearbox which then bolted to the main chassis.

You need to use the engine and gearbox intelligently, but if you do that, you will be rewarded with a  fine driving experience and you will left in no doubt as to the quality and depth of the engineering and for this reason, it’s not a car for the ‘lazy’ driver.