Lancia Fulvia: Our 21st Favourite

Cars



After agonising for ages on wether the Lancia Fulvia Coupé should be in our top twenty list of all time Italian cars, we’ve decided to include it as our 21st favourite. Never let it be said that we at Influx towers are inflexible.

The Fulvia coupé holds a paticularly special place in my heart. When I took my driving test some time in the early eighties, I had been saving for at least eighteen months for a car. Being a ridiculously romantic and guileless teenager, I didn’t want my car to be one of the usual motors my mates had been burdened by (you know, crappy old Escorts, Fiestas and Cortinas). I had my heart set on either a Triumph TR6 or a Fulvia Coupé.

So, I went to have a look at a particularly rusty but beautifully cheap example of (I think) a 1973 Lusso in green a week before my test was due. It was heart-wrenchingly pretty, though even at just a decade old you could see the road through the driver’s side floor sill and it stank of cat’s pee.

As it turned out, I failed that particular test (stalled it on the three point turn, swore loudly and roared off to breach 34 MPH in a built-up area ). Horribly disillusioned and cobby in the way only a seventeen year old can be, I didn’t take another test for five years, during which time I drove a Mustang unlicensed around the ‘states, before returning to England and buying a Citroen.

Like our dear reader, the pretty Fulvia Coupé was for me the one that got away.

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3 Responses to “Lancia Fulvia: Our 21st Favourite”

  1. That’s more like it. A real mean machine. This brightened up a boring Monday afternoon. And the Alfasud was wicked, too.

  2. David j hope

    You had a lucky escape!  I used to buy similar vehicles and once you were tempted (seduced)  they became Money Pits