Do be careful driving in Palo Alto, I know people who have gotten
tickets for not having front plates there.
On 2025-01-17 14:24, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote:
Am 17.01.25 um 18:25 schrieb Bob W PDML:
That looks very Italian! Should t there be a number plate on the
front?
:) Yes, it look very Italian indeed...! One of the interesting
factoids about the Lancia Fulvia Coupé was that, unlike nearly all of
the other Lancia sporting models over the years, it was entirely an
in-house body design.
Technically, yes: there should be a front license plate fitted. But
the standard California license plate doesn't fit anywhere except on
the original US bumper mounting...
On Jan 17, 2025, at 10:11 AM, Ralf R Radermacher <p...@uebra.de>
wrote:
...and a front bumper. In their days and outside of race tracks, such
bumperless cars would rather identify their drivers as members of the
lower castes.
I've never considered myself as someone from a 'higher caste' ... The
USA is not India. ;)
I don't think that negative aspect to the bumperless aesthetic ever
held in the USA.
At the American Lancia Club West Coast Reunion in 2023 (my first time
attending), out of the 48 or so Lancia cars there, about 23 were
Fulvia Coupés. At the final dinner gathering on Sunday, all of us
"newcomers to Lancia" were invited to stand, introduce ourselves, and
tell the story of our involvement with Lancia and our particular cars.
When it was my turn, I did a short brief about my fascination with the
marque and the Fulvia Coupé and SportGT Zagato models since I had been
a child, and a brief summary of this car's history. And then I queried
... "I've looked at all the Fulvia Coupés in the parking lot. NONE of
them have the original bumpers, all of them are fitted with the
Fanalone-style Rally model blanking plates for the bumper mounts.
Doesn't anyone value these cars in their original, factory
configuration?" Virtually everyone in the dining all looked at their
neighbors, and said in practically one voice: "Why put bumpers on a
Fulvia Coupé? The bumpers are ugly and just excess weight! They don't
protect anything!" And then laughed uproariously. :D None of the other
Fulvia Coupés at the ALC gathering had front license plates either.
One small note: only 20 of the 50 States in the USA require a front
license plate.
(Various sold-for-daily-use Rally inspired models were bumperless from
the factory. And remember that these cars were last officially
imported into the USA in 1967, so NONE of them were ever outfitted to
meet USA bumper requirements which started in 1968.)
The guy I bought it from had sold the bumpers to another Lancia
enthusiast who was doing a restoration and wanted factory original.
Sammy was building it to be a "rally replica". This car had had a
small fender-bender at some point and someone had welded on the bumper
mounts at the rear, so when I got it the rear was somewhat unsightly
with the two bumper mounting tubes sticking out like water pipes.
About a year after I got it running nicely again, and had re-done the
entire interior, a bit of rust surfaced so I had it in the body shop
to repair that. The guy at the shop looked at the two raw tubes
sticking out the back ...
"It'd look a lot nicer without those two tubes sticking out..."
"I've got another pair of blanking plates like on the front... but
rear tubes have been welded on."
"Great... 'Welded on' means nothing to me."
... and they were gone when I picked up the car, with the nice
blanking plates fitted. So bumpers are no longer an option. It's now
in my book an "unofficial Rally inspired replica." What to do about a
front license plate is another issue. I'm thinking of having a
euro-inspired custom plate made.
The next (and hopefully last) major upgrade will be fitment of the
Fanalone headlamp setup, which replaces the two 6.25 inch high beam
lamps with a pair of 8 inch headlight lamps, to complete the HF Rally
look:
standard Fulvia headlamps: https://flic.kr/p/2qERRfk
Fanalone style headlamps: https://flic.kr/p/2qEQDbE
I have so much fun mucking about with this car. And it proves to be a
true pleasure to drive as well! :D
G
On 17 Jan 2025, at 16:27, Godfrey DiGiorgi <godfreydigio...@me.com>
wrote:
So since I've barely taken any photos since XDay 2024, I was poking
back through the 2024 archive in search of photos I'd made but not
rendered/posted yet. And I found this lovely late-evening photo of
my '67 Lancia Fulvia Coupé made while out for dinner back last
September 11:
An Evening Out on 9-11 - San Jose 2024 :: https://flic.kr/p/2qFNEda
iPhone 15 Pro : ISO 1600 @ f/2.8 @ 1/30 @ 9mm
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