Colour and paint

This is a big subject, the kind where the more you know the more you realise you still have to learn.

The Third Wiper?

When I removed the car’s headlining at the weekend I was intrigued to find a length of steel tube mounted in the roof at the edge of the windscreen on the driver’s side of the car.  Investigating further, it’s clear that the tube goes through to the outside where it’s been blocked off

Inversion therapy

With apologies to some who might already have read about the raising and rotating of B20-2959 on the LMC forum,  here’s a progress report.

The People you meet

Usually, the one of the pleasures in the finding, buying, finding out about, finding bits for and generally fettling an old Lancia lies in the people you run into, get help from or give to, and so on.

But every so often, that’s not how it works.

Dismantling underway

It is 5 weeks since I reported on first impressions of the car, and I’ve now got a much better idea of its true condition, and what work is needed on the body.  I’ve also been thinking about the plan for the car.

The joy of spec’s

Specialists that is…

For the past 10 or more years, at the recommendation of Omicron Engineering, I’ve used a company called Keys Galore when I’ve needed a new key made for an old lock.  ‘Britain’s Largest Range of Keys‘ is the bold assertion on their unassuming shop front, found on a residential street in a smart north London enclave, Primrose Hill.

Some photos.

So here’s 2959 (the eighth 4th Series B20 built, since you ask…) installed in my workshop barn this morning.

The boot is locked, and the car has not got any keys with it, so I’m going to have to send off the ignition and driver’s door lock barrels to a locksmith to cut a key blank to fit. 

First impressions

Suspense over. Car in the barn, and a cursory inspection made inside and out, above and below.

As predicted, a mixed bag of pros and cons.

It’s on the way

It’s on the way… dragged up this morning from long-term underground storage blinking (actually probably not, given the absence of ‘eyes’) into the light and onto the back of a transporter for the trip over the pyrenees and across France.

For real? Google’s part in my downfall.

So here’s the way the research went, over the course of a few slightly tense hours, before I committed to buy the car.