Appealing in their own way – but which is Quentin’s Smartest Buy of 2017?
Buy wisely and you could end up running one of this fabulous five for free
Identifying affordable classics that will tickle up in value is getting increasingly hard. And we’re not looking for soaring five-digit appreciation here. We wanted to find motors that will rise gently enough in value so owning them will cost very little at all. At
Classic Cars we’re great believers that you can use the current buoyant market to run old cars for nothing. Buy cleverly one year and sell shrewdly the next. And that’s why we trawled adverts and auction results and came up with five relatively accessible classics that we think bought wisely and in unspoilt condition will climb in value enough to wipe away any ownership and maintenance costs.
A decent Saab 900 Turbo is still only £5k and we think that might eventually move to £10,000. A nice Elan S4 convertible looks underpriced to us at £30k and £10,000 for a pretty, sweet handling Lancia Fulvia also feels behind the market. We also reckon early Interceptors look strong value at less than £50k and are surprised you can still buy a good Merc W111 220 SEB Coupé for sub-£40,000. Our five choices are iconic, were made in fairly limited numbers, have fine driving dynamics and are all, without exception, glam and stylish. These are the vital criteria that we believe will set them apart and help their values move upward. Track down a restored or fine original example of any of this lot at today’s current market prices and you’ll be buying with potential for gentle gain. Choosing which one, we’ll have to leave to you.
‘We’re talking refined express travel here, not drag racing hooliganism’
Jensen Interceptor. A name dripping with jet-set glamour. And the car, this 1969 MKI pouting at me across the car park, simply oozes it. Yet for as long as I’ve been writing about cars, these machines have been trapped in that place in the classic hierarchy we reserve for luxury bargains, cars to be bought for MGB money with several pairs of fingers crossed to ward away ruinous restoration costs. But that status is changing. Now they’re being sought with restorations as part of the plan, by owners wanting the job done properly. They remember the Interceptor in all of its late Sixties/ early Seventies pomp, and want to taste that for themselves.
And what pomp. At its 1966 Earls Court launch, this £3742 heavyweight may have undercut the Aston Martin DB6 Vantage by £1300 but it was still the price of five and a half Ford Cortinas. It attracted a catwalk of celebrity buyers, from suave crooner Frank Sinatra to hard-partying Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, who got through five, plus a couple of four-wheel-drive FFS.
Conveniently overlooking my own skills with an electric guitar, I feel like a rock star as soon as my fingers slot into the door handle and lift its cool, chrome lever. Led Zeppelin may have had their own Boeing 720, but the view inside a Series 1 Interceptor is just as impressive, with speedometer and tachometer pods thrusting confidently from the dashboard, more minor gauges than a Seventies motoring accessory shop and an edifice of centre console bristling with a particularly enticing set of toggle switches.
Flight systems – check. Cabin doors to manual – check. Ignition. Pedal down to set the automatic choke, twist the key and after a few patient churns the slumbering V8 tickles into life, ramping up to a busy idle before calming to a warm thrum, the car gently oscillating to its rhythm. At first the driving position seems as Italian as the cabin ambience, but with a bit of fiddling I find a happy compromise between seat reach and rake, and sink a little deeper into its embrace. It’s perhaps inevitable – the Interceptor was styled in Italy by Touring, and the first 60 cars were bodied, and many of them trimmed, by Vignale before the West Bromwich workers geared up for full production during 1967.
Warm-up act over, it’s time for the headline performance. Before grasping the chrome ice-cream cone of a gear selector I give the throttle an exploratory dab, and the 6.3-litre Chrysler E-series spins up with surprisingly crisp agility. There’s more to this V8 than lazy torque, but with 425lb ft of the stuff rushing to the party from just 2800rpm it’s disarmingly easy to break traction. Best get the 1678kg moving before digging deeper. The reward is confident, easy thrust, and intoxicating urgency from 80-100mph. With the smaller-bore exhaust of the Series 1, don’t expect unseemly muscle car thunder; instead savour assertive, low-key bellow as the tacho needle sweeps swiftly from 4500-5100rpm. We’re talking refined express travel here, not drag racing hooliganism.
This is a 1969 model, built after the transition from trunnion front suspension to double wishbones, but there’s still a live rear axle on leaf springs, albeit with Panhard rod lateral control. The ride feels sophisticated, until it runs out of clever ideas when a
mid-corner ridge or bump intervenes. But it’s all handled with a gentle wriggle of the wheel and shimmy from the rear.
And the Adwest power-assisted rack steers all of that mass with surprising obedience, weighting up with hefty feedback as the forces lean towards the outside of the bend. Like most Interceptor Series 1s, this one has a redundant four-position selector dial for long-gone Armstrong Selectaride rear dampers. These went out of production in 1970 and no one can refurbish them now, but modern substitutes work well. Even the Girling disc brakes front and rear cope with the momentum, though there’s always a sense that they have a lot of work to do.
The Interceptor adds up as an era-defining symbol of exclusive express travel; assertive without ever forgetting who’s boss. And to my eye the 1024 Series 1s built before the high bumper, angulardashboard Interceptor II arrived in late 1969 have the strongest appeal. But that doesn’t translate into prices for now, according to Paul Lewis, who runs specialist Pale Classics. ‘It’s really more about condition than model, with projects at around £10k, usable cars for £30k£35k, very nice cars at £50k and upwards of £75k for the best.’
He recommends joining the Jensen Owners’ Club for expert guidance, and starting your checks with the interior. It’s a potential £10k retrim, and undesirable if done in leather too thick or thin. Next, poke a small screwdriver through the lower sill drain holes. ‘If it goes in more than ¾in, the inner sill is gone and you’re looking at £3k per side to do it properly.’ After that, look for corrosion or poor repairs where the hatchback hinges mount in the roof structure, ‘You can’t find secondhand roof panels from scrap cars any more, and making a new one is a highly skilled repair.’
Paul also cautions against modifications that can devalue a car, such as a later louvred bonnet on a Series 1. ‘With the cooling system in good condition it shouldn’t be necessary.’
Testament to that is Martin Kennedy, who used this car to commute into his Dublin office. ‘Over the past year I’ve driven it 50 out of 52 weeks, and I’ve had no issues whatsoever.’ He started with a good example, then asked specialist Rejen to go right through it. But despite being delighted with it, Martin has asked Pale Classics to sell it for him. ‘I discovered a Dublin FF not half a mile from my office that had been off the road since 1973. It was in a terrible state, but I had to have it.’
As these beguiling cars trickle out of exacting restorations, Interceptors are regaining the covetable glamour of their youth, and with it their Aston Martin-chasing prices. If you’ve always wanted one, now’s a good time to make your move.
Yes, I can see all those quizzically angled eyebrows from here. Surely the iconic and standard-setting Lotus Elan is always a smart buy? Without a doubt, at least for those of us with a measurable trace of petrol in our bloodstream. So a little explanation is needed as to why the Elan has popped up in this feature, this year. And it’s all down to numbers, of course.
Let’s look at the values of other iconic classic sports cars that you’ll find on the same Le Mans-bound ferries each June, and see how much they’ve risen in the past three years. Porsche 911E up 27%; Mini Cooper 1275S plus 33%; Jaguar E-type 40% and Ferrari 308 GTB a whopping 60%. During that same period the poor neglected Elan’s prices have crept up by a very ordinary 15%. There is surely some catching up to be done, which makes this a very good time to be sniffing round the market, before the inevitable happens and the Elan starts playing catch-up.
Our deliberate choice of the S4 version is simple because this is traditionally the cheapest open two-seat model in the world of Elans. Earlier cars have already passed the £30k mark, but you can still pick up a great S4 for £27,500 or less.
The reason for that discount is the same one that brought us the rather sexy power bulge in the Elan S4’s bonnet, absent from earlier models – the twin Stromberg carburettors that sit beneath it. Despite their negligible downward effect on performance it was long ago tacitly agreed that Strombergs are just that bit less manly than Webers; the quiche of the underbonnet world. There are alternate stories as to why Lotus switched to them, the more official and dull line being that it was to comply with US regulations. However, Mike Taylor’s well regarded book Lotus
Elan The Complete Story tells the even more believable tale that the change happened after Lotus’s MD Denis Austin remarked to Colin Chapman that Strombergs were ‘a damn sight cheaper’ than Weber carbs. Whichever version you choose to believe, the Elan was back to using Webers after about a year, though the bonnet bulge remained for the rest of the model’s life.
I’ve driven plenty of Elans with both kinds of carburettor and from the driver’s seat the only way you can tell between them is that Stromberg-equipped cars are slightly quieter and more civilised as there’s less of that gulpy induction noise. Not much less, mind you – a Lotus Elan cabin is always a busy cacophony of good noises. My specially reserved driving-a-lotus grin clicks into place as the metal-sawing sound of the starter motor is replaced by eager twin-cam thrum. Any time behind the wheel of an Elan is an event on the level of going to see your favourite band. I’d even enjoy driving one to the dentist’s. In the rain.
Today I have John Hutton’s well-sorted S4 pointed at the challenging twists and dips of one of our favourite handling test routes. Hutton’s Elan doesn’t disappoint. As ever the first element that grabs your attention is the steering – so precise, perfectly weighted and full of feel. The cliché is to call it kart-like, but it’s better than that. The feedback is just as pure, but in an Elan you can enjoy it all day. Twenty minutes wrestling with kart steering
‘You can start playing with it almost from the off, without the learning curve that most cars demand’
will jellify all but the most athletic arm muscles. What the Elan’s rack and pinion does does is instantly connect you to the machine and give the confidence to start playing with it almost from the off, without the learning curve that most cars demand.
The Lotus incites you to misbehave with its abilities. I exit every corner with the thought that I could take it quicker next time, and marvel at how much grip can be generated by those skinny 155 tyres – Vredestein winter rubber in this case, as Hutton uses his Elan all year round, commuting to Brooklands museum. When you do start to tickle the limits, the chassis informs you with the calm demeanour of a BBC newsreader that the tail is starting to push out, it’s all going to be progressive and all you need do is apply a hint of correction with either wheel or throttle pedal. This quickly becomes a well-rehearsed dance.
Nearly all the Elan’s joyfulness hinges around its light weight. There’s less for the suspension, steering and brakes to do, and though 115bhp doesn’t sound like much to write home about, it’s enough to make the tiny Lotus feel like a missile. To really put it in perspective, the Elan-aping Mazda MX-5 is no tub of lard, but has the same power output hauling an extra 300kg around. You can’t argue with basic physics.
All that weight saving, however, means that Elans operate on the edge of fragility. That doesn’t actually mean they break a lot, whatever myths and legends might claim, but they do require proper looking after by people who understand Lotuses.
‘I had to look at lots of cars before I found the right one,’ says John Hutton. ‘As a retired engineer, I’m happy to work on it myself but you do need a good starting point. This had the best door fit I’ve seen, and more importantly a fairly recent Spyder replacement chassis underneath it.’
That’s probably the car’s most important element, so you need to check any Elan’s chassis carefully for rot, especially around the front suspension towers. Most will have had a new one at some point. If so when, and was it a galvanised one? You should also try and establish when the water pump was last replaced. It’s a major and expensive job, and pumps fail quite regularly, so something you’d expect to find in a cared-for car’s history file. As a check, if water is leaking from below it, the pump is on its way out.
On the plus side, the parts situation for Elans is very good, though anything specific to Lotus rather than from someone else’s parts bin is likely to inflict pain on your wallet.
But most of all you should judge an Elan from the driver’s seat. If it fails to delight in every way something is amiss and you haven’t found the right one yet.
If car choice is reflective of personality then buying a Saab has always been indicative of someone thinking outside the traditional automotive box.
Refreshingly unconventional and quirky, Trollhättan’s beautifully engineered, ice-cool output has always been hoovered up by the, well, quirky and unconventional. And as a statement nothing says member of the groovy intelligentsia like a Saab 900 Turbo does.
Personally, it’s a call I’ve never answered. And yet, every time I’ve clapped my eyes on – or strapped my backside in – one, it’s resonated with an almost gravitational level of pull. There’s simply nothing else on the road like it. Factor in that Saab is no more – sounds like a Proclaimers lament – as well the modern bent for generic design-a-like output, and never again will there be.
An evolution of its predecessor, the 99, that elongated side profile, with its high cabin roofline, has always been reminiscent of the same purity of line as an original Birkenstock sandal; only here, in Carlsson form – with rear whale tail and front airflow spoilers, body kit, lowered sports suspension and cross-spoke alloy wheels – it’s been transformed into a Teva. That analogy may not get the pulse going, but even when new it looked classic.
There’s no sill to step over as you lower yourself into the Bridge of Weir leather covered interior and if the Egyptians had constructed pyramids from metal, then the entrance to tombs would have shut with the same solidity as the Saab’s heavy-gauge steel door. At £20,495 in 1990, it had a hefty price tag, but inside it has all the requisite electronic toys. The heater is Scandinavian winter epic, and after a couple of minutes I have to turn it down or risk roasting my chestnuts.
Turn the centre floor-mounted key and it fires quietly, settling into a low and uneventful thrum – most underwhelming. The clutch is light but the gearbox’s gate isn’t particularly well defined, and requires a measured hand to slot home, even if there’s a satisfying kink to the left between 1st and 2nd. At low speed the stiff sports suspension feels solid, edging on the harsh, as it crashes over road imperfections. Engage the throttle and, unlike earlier Saab Turbos with their epic lag, there’s instant access to high levels of torque at low revs; the low level exhaust burble disappearing, to be replaced with high-pitched aviation-like whining noise. And my, the kick to seat of the pants is epic – this is boy-racer obliterating, Porsche-chasing midrange grunt.
Unlike other model special editions – yes, I’m thinking of you, BMW M635CSI Motorsport – that were purely cosmetic uplifts, the Carlsson’s engine actually received an extra ten horses thanks to its ‘red box’ Automatic Performance System. That said, it does the GT bit with long-legged aplomb, but it’s no slouch as a B-road warrior either. The steering is beautifully weighted, with plenty of feel and it seems fairly agile for such a big beast on both long sweepers or as, and when, bends tighten considerably.
Completing this smart package are large anchors, replete with ABS, that scrub off speed as assuredly. Yes, with 210lb ft through the front wheels a heavy throttle foot can elicit torque
‘This is boy-racer obliterating, Porschechasing midrange grunt’
steer and it’ll understeer under very heavy cornering, but like a Swedish meatball it’s always decidedly satisfying, providing an entertaining performance boost, while feeling like you could drive it to the very end of the earth – and back again.
Owner Toby Smith’s father became warranty manager at Saabscania in 1974 and although Toby remembers numerous company cars, one in particular still stands out. ‘Seeing a Rose Quartz Silver 900i with burgundy velvet interior parked on our driveway I thought one day… one day, I’m having one of those. By the time my father had completed 20 years at the company – and received his second complaint – I’d acquired a black 900 T16.’
Despite looking lovely, it used to bite him on more or less every journey. ‘It’d eat its gearbox or, as dusk drew in, turn its lights off without explanation. I loved it, but the bills were too high for me just starting out, so I sold it.’ Owned six years, his current Carlsson has been the polar opposite. ‘In contrast, a minor distributor cap issue aside, it’s been very wellbehaved with just the standard wear and tear costs you’d expect.’
According to Glen Marks of Saab specialist Classic 900 (classic900. com), as when new, the Turbo remains the model that people want. ‘They’re fully loaded, have exclusivity and are utterly bulletproof. We look after one that’s done 460,000 miles on its original timing chain.’ Now, approaching 30 years old, corrosion is the biggest issue. ‘They suffer around the wheelarches, bottoms of the doors and despite it being triple-skinned, the bonnet. It never really kills the car, though.’
That said, buy on condition: costs to rectify rust issues will vary according to the level of work required. ‘What would worry me is if the car has been messed with mechanically,’ says Marks. ‘Some people go a stage further and fit go-faster aftermarket bits. It never really works and standard is best. Parts availability is getting more difficult, but a number of suppliers – such as Neo Brothers (neobrothers.co.uk) – have a decent amount tucked away.’
The Saab 900 Turbo and the Carlsson in particular have been undervalued for many years now, and only recently started creeping up. Owner Toby has been quietly involved in the Saab scene for a number of years and reckons, save for the odd car residing in a garage, only around ten of the original 600 examples are still on the road.
Hipsters have got it all wrong. You don’t need a beard manicured to within an inch of its follicles, lumberjack shirt, skinny jeans, boots and a mobile cereal shop. You just need a Saab 900 Turbo Carlsson, and hey presto – instant cool.
Toby’s 900 Carlsson is currently for sale at classiccarsforsale.co.uk
Mercedes sent the 220 SEB coupé out on to a playing field largely free of any competition in the early Sixties. Those looking for a large elegant two-door to vicariously speak of their success, wealth and appreciation for fineries were rather limited in scope. As a more tactful choice than a Silver Cloud or an S2 Continental coachbuilt to one’s two-door desires, the Mercedes communicated in a noble baritone of which Morgan Freeman would be envious.
Until the two-door W111 was revealed at the opening of the Unterturkheim Daimler-benz Museum in 1961, Mercedes had been recovering from the same pre-war design hangover that the posh Brits were drunkenly postponing. With the 220SEB, Paul Bracq had cooked up a hearty banquet of contemporary style. Swooping wings were long gone, and the W111 saloon’s tailfins were tamed to the point of being vestigial. Some elements borrowed from Fifties Motorama remained – witness the wraparound windscreen and chrome accoutrements – but the Merc was nevertheless the car of modern, forward-thinking intellectuals. Dr Felix Wankel had one despite his enduring lack of a driving licence.
In fact, German folklore suggests Mercedes originally intended to equip the W111 coupé with the Wankel rotary it was keeping close tabs on, but its slow development quickly put paid to that idea. The straight-six that usurped it is both the reason it’s included in this year’s Smart Buys, and the point that had us debating its inclusion. With the market in swoons over the W111’s ultimate evolution, the 280 SE 3.5 V8, values of the six-cylinder coupés have been relatively flat until recently. But does a 2.2-litre six with 120bhp not make this famously over-engineered luxury German U-boat somewhat under-engined?
Unlike Dr Felix, I have both a responsibility and an untainted desire to find out. After passing the chromed edge of the door and dropping down into a plump leather chair that gently exhales in acceptance, I take a moment to appreciate the cabin. The door slams so solidly that it could indeed belong to a submarine, silencing the cabin to the point that I can hear the richly veneered dashboard’s clock tick.
A few curious prods of the chromed butterfly-valve air vents later, I fire the starter. The single overhead cam straight-six catches quickly and settles into a cultured, if tonally underwhelming idle. Here be no Solexes; the W111 was the first mainstream production car to be offered with fuel injection. ‘As long as you’ve had the system set up by someone who knows what they’re doing, you can cover big distances without even thinking about it,’ says owner Peter Lewis, who has turned his hobby of collecting classic Mercedes into a business under the Cheshire Classic Benz banner. Reliable it may be, but can the SEB cover those distances with the refinement and performance those intellectuals would demand?
Early signs suggest so. With a single-pivot swing axle borrowed from the 300 SL Roadster at the rear, the suspension gobbles up road imperfections. The front discs hide the big Merc’s heft under braking commendably given the era. Increase to modern cruising speeds, however, and you’ll quickly surpass the Seb’s natural
gait. Undergearing is an unfortunate byproduct of the ‘adequate’ acceleration – the 60mph sprint takes 12.7 seconds – and by 70mph a busy 4000rpm has you mourning the loss of that cabin refinement. This car might speak volumes on your behalf, but some singing lessons wouldn’t go amiss.
And, the gearbox’s reluctance to kick down means that to avoid steep-incline embarassment on particularly undulating twisties, you have to carry a momentum through bends that feels unseemly – especially given the leisurely steering and seats with only period levels of lateral support. But the big Merc does have a surprising party trick: an ultra-tight turning circle that unexpectedly upstages every other car here at peacocking speeds.
And therein lies the Benz’s forte – it’s a big beautiful boulevardier rather than a B-road barnstormer, and coaxes out a driving persona you might never thought existed inside you.
Once you accept and embrace its lethargic character, you’re rewarded by that Freeman-like velvet baritone offering words of wisdom. It proposes you gently grip the slender-rimmed wheel between your thumb and index finger, with a right elbow rested on the window edge. Perhaps you should nonchalantly throw a left arm over the passenger seat-back too – assuming a Grace Kelly-type hasn’t joined you by that point, that is.
Such a blasé approach must not be applied to the buying process, however. Even though 250s and 280s command respective 5% and 10% premiums over 220s, condition should be regarded above engine size with rust-sluething taking highest priority. The usual spots – sills, floorpans, suspension mountings and the boot floor – are the areas to focus your attentions on, but there are fewer concealed hotspots than there are on a Pagoda.
Although the W111’s original fuel injection systems can be made reliable with some modern-day know-how, they don’t respond well to long periods of inactivity so budget around £1000 for a specialist to sort out a clogged-up unit if the engine runs lumpily. It’s vital to pay attention to the condition of window/door seals, and trim pieces inside and out – there’s a lot to replace if they’re too tatty to save. A new interior can cost £7k. Values have climbed a little recently – Cheshire Classic Benz reports two good 220s sold in recent months in the late £30ks, which would have bought a concours car in early 2016. And considering its merits against the Pagoda, which is no more glamorous or desirable yet currently fetches 2-3 times more, the big Merc should continue to reign in its little brother. This level of pillarless panache is more desirable now than ever – cultured restraint in an increasingly brash world, anyone?
‘It’s a beautiful boulevardier rather than a B-road barnstormer’
It’s a conundrum I’ve never quite been able to solve. The Lancia Fulvia 1.3S Coupé is swift, extremely pretty, technically interesting, directly related to a glamorous and successful competition car, and possessed of glassy-surfaced proportions so perfect that it’s tricky to find an angle from which it looks ungainly. And yet the other 1300cc Sixties Italian coupé you could say these things about – the Alfa Romeo Giulia GT Junior – has stubbornly remained roughly twice the price of its rival from Chivasso ever since they both entered the classic fold. It can’t be the ‘wrongwheel drive’ thing, surely?
Because to dismiss the Fulvia on those lines would be idiotic. It comes from a time when front-wheel drive was about technical innovation rather than uninspiring platform-engineering. This was the era of the Citroën DS, Mini Cooper and Saab 96, and the reason for the Fulvia’s mechanical layout becomes obvious the second you ëick it into a tight corner.
Relaxing in its surprisingly airy cockpit with an excellent driving position defying all Italian stereotypes, the dashboard finished with ëashes of stainless steel and that wonderful script-badge, you expect the Fulvia to be all about glamorous Mercedes Sl-style cruising and basking in cool ambience. It does all this with aplomb too, but you’ll never see how it won all those rally championships unless you drive it as hard as you would a hot-hatch. Slick gearshift in third, longitudinally mounted narrow-angle V4 snarling ferociously above 2500rpm, it despatches hairpins in a smooth, assertive manner. A frisson of lift-off oversteer is there if you want it, but it knits together the tangled threads of your average British B-road with dizzying efficiency and with head-reeling grip that charges the senses.
When you imagine doing the same drive in its old tail-wagging Alfa rival, you realise the Fulvia’s historical significance. While the Mini Cooper and Saab 96 may have been accidental heroes, their drivetrain layouts brought about by packaging and aerodynamics; the Fulvia is the great-grandfather of all those ‘Evo’ monsters of the Eighties and Nineties, fetishising sticky roadholding and lateral G-forces.
It’s nowhere near as fast as an Integrale, obviously, but thanks to its light weight and nose-down stance with subtle negative camber on its driven wheels, the Fulvia is still a thrillingly involving B-road companion, going precisely where it’s pointed, its unassisted steering sizzling with feedback. Don’t let its modest 1298cc displacement and 90bhp output fool you either – this is a fast car if you drive it neatly, keeping that excitable engine fizzing within its power band at all times.
‘It was my first car!’ says owner Neil Sims. ‘I bought it in 1984 for £500 and ran it for seven years before taking it off the road with the intention of solving some brake issues. It sat around for a while before I realised I needed to restore it.’ Neil’s ownership story is not unusual when it comes to Fulvias. As dealers have traditionally avoided Lancias, some of the best buys are to be found in private classified adverts, where if you’re lucky you’ll
‘The Fulvia is the great-grandfather of the Evo monsters of the Eighties and Nineties’
find cherished cars being offloaded by passionate long-term enthusiasts, many of whom have fettled the cars themselves.
‘Trim is hard to come by, but replacement body panels are being remanufactured now,’ says Neil. ‘Also, despite Lancia’s later reputation with the Beta they were made from high-quality steel and undersealed when new. Obviously they do rust now but not as badly as a Beta. The main part to check is the rearmost front subframe mountings – a telltale sign that they’ve rotted through is a crack in the top of the nearside rear wheelarch where the bodywork’s taken the strain. Check for rust around the brightwork too – the paint was sometimes scraped during factory assembly so water’s often got in over time.
‘The engines are tough, reliable and easy to work on, with all service parts available although carburettors are unique to the car. Originally they had Solex PHH C35s, but Dell’orto DHL B35s are more reliable, and just £500.’
Martin Cliffe of Omicron has been restoring Lancias since the Eighties. ‘Solving the worst-case scenario of the subframe rust issue involves cutting the bottoms off the front wings– a week’s work that will cost £1200 per side before you even look at respraying,’ he says.
‘The 1300 engine is tougher than the 1600 HF’S, and is reliable with normal routine maintenance. But the automatic fan on Series 2s is controlled by an in-line fuse supported by its own wiring. If this fails, the closely spaced radiator fins block and rust, and the car will overheat rapidly in traffic, warping its cylinder head. The rebuild will involve machining and will cost £5k-£6k.’
It’s not the most refined of cars – the telltale buzz of undergearing and a 3500-4000rpm cruising speed say as much – and the V4 throbs noticeably at idle, shuddering through the interior. However, this really is a superlative all-rounder for everything you’d use a classic for. On a country-lane blast it makes MG Midgets feel crude while running rings round them. On the boulevardier’s admiration-courting slow-cruise through the city streets it shows ‘Pagoda’ Merc SLS up as stylistically heavy-handed and too obvious a choice. And in your classic motor club’s roadrally it’ll show a clean set of tyre tracks to modified Minis while making you feel – and look – like Sandro Munari.
The fact that the best one will cost you not much more than a half-share in an Alfa Romeo Giulia GT Junior is a quirk of the market that just can’t last.
And you can remind the purists that it’s been a very, very long time since a rear-wheel-drive car won a world championship rally.
Thanks to: Neil Sims, Tim Heath, the Lancia Motor Club (lanciamc. co.uk), Martin Cliffe, Omicron Lancia (omicron.uk.com)