My Lancia Fulvia Zagato story

I’ve started this blog for my Fulvia Zagato as a way to record my ownership of the car so it seems appropriate to consider why I bought it, hopefully this post will explain it – or at least help me to justify my purchase to myself! The Lancia Fulvia Sport Zagato (to give the full name) is a car that I liked since having a Corgi model of it as a child – almost certainly the side opening bonnet on the model being a point that made it significant for me. I loved the look of the car and the exotic appeal of a “Zagato”. As a teenager a neighbour had one so I regularly saw it driving past, admiring the looks of the car whenever I saw it, sometimes specifically going along the part of the estate where the car’s owner lived just to look at it. But life moved on and I didn’t see many for a while but whenever I did I thought how fabulous they looked. In more recent years I started to think how much I would like to own one without really doing anything about it, but then it became easier to look up prices and I began to think that it maybe possible to buy one, using Man maths to consider it as an investment rather than just a car to buy and run. In the second half of 2015 this became a proper search for a car to buy, investigated the various different Fulvia Zagatos which were made, scouring many European and UK websites selling classic cars to find the right one for me (within a fairly tight budget). I got quite frustrated with sellers for some I found who did not reply to messages, although I did realise that using Google translate to send messages in Italian may not be the best strategy, but I had no other option!

I found two cars in the UK for sale, looking at both but finding that one needed a massive amount of bodywork to make it good, and the other being right at the top end of my budget, with some work required that I would struggle to afford.

Two cars I found for sale in the UK and considered buying

Whilst contemplating my bodywork skills an advert appeared for the car I bought. It was in Kent, I live in Yorkshire but I felt it worth a trip as soon as possible to view it. An appointment made led to a very early start on a Saturday morning in April 2016 to drive down the A1. As soon as I saw the car I knew I would buy it, but it was still worth checking properly before striking a deal for the full asking price!

 

Viewing the car I bought 

“My” car had been dry stored for 26 years before being sold at Auction in 2015 to the person I bought it from, he had also stored it but decided to sell to fund a very large house extension.

Arrival for storage near home

After getting the car I managed to track down the previous owner, the car being registered to a business. I did manage to get in touch and found out that the car had been bought with very poor bodywork which had been restored. When completed the car was put into a shipping container for storage because there was a recession which was affecting the owner who was in the construction industry. Twenty six years later he opened the container, expecting to find a pile of rust but finding the car as it still is, basically in very sound condition. He got it out of the container and sent it away to someone to get it running before putting it in an auction. The story doesn’t quite end there as he also told me that it didn’t have the original engine as it wasn’t running right. After fiddling with it he said to his mechanic just to get another engine and fit that, which he did. But the then owner kept the original engine in parts in a wheel barrow in the container the car was in so he was open to offers. I checked prices and made an offer which was accepted - probably means I offered too much!

Apparently this is all the parts needed to rebuild the original engine for the car!

So now I have the car with an engine which does run. And I have a lot of bits which I gather would make a complete engine if assembled. All that is needed is to recommission the car, principally involving replacing everything rubber as it all looks perished and I think a lot of electrical connections and switches might need cleaning up to get them to work. Once those jobs are done I will be able to drive a Lancia Fulvia Sport Zagato for the first time. I’m really looking forward to that!