The Italian Job
In Italy he is known as Mr Land Rover, thanks to his contribution to the country’s club scene and his intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Series III. Meet Domenico Giannitti...
Known as Mr Land Rover in Italy, and a huge contributor to the country’s club scene, meet Domenico Giannitti
THE HISTORY books will tell you that the small Italian town of San Mango sul Calore is bestknown for a devastating earthquake on November 23, 1980, which destroyed most of its old buildings. But this sleepy settlement in the hills of Avellino is better known to Italian Land Rover fans as the birthplace of a legend.
That legend is Domenico Giannitti, a brilliant mechanic who knows leaf-sprung Land Rovers inside out and was the founding father of the Italian Land Rover club scene. He was born in San Mango sul Calore in 1953, but in the summer of 1960, his mother emigrated to England, taking six-year-old Domenico and his older sister, to be reunited with their father who was already working on a farm in Petworth, West Sussex.
A few months later the family moved to Boxgrove, a few miles north-east of Chichester. He couldn’t speak a word of English, but he learned quickly and excelled at school.
When he left, at 16, he couldn’t decide whether to become a chef or carpenter, because at school he had been top of his class in both cookery and woodwork. But he also loved cars and applied for a job as an apprentice mechanic for a local garage. The boss there loved Italy so he didn't ask too many questions and Domenico got the job two weeks later.
Chichester Automobile was the British Leyland dealer in the town, and for the next four years Domenico worked on Jaguar, Daimler, Rover and Triumph vehicles, as well as Land Rovers. He also attended weekly classes at Chichester College to obtain his City & Guilds qualification and, from November 1974 to February 1975, he attended the new Series III workshops held at Land Rover’s Solihull factory and got to know everything about the iconic model.
“Nobody else at Chichester Automobile wanted to work on Land Rovers. They were used for agriculture and you had to be prepared to get really dirty to fix them,” recalls Domenico. “But I didn't care, because I loved those cars. I just wanted to get my hands on them and try to solve all the problems they might have."
In 1975, Domenico returned to Italy to join his sister, who had already moved back and was working in Viareggio, a coastal town in Tuscany. But he didn't like it there and moved to Florence. He could no longer speak good Italian, because of the strong English accent he had acquired during his years in Sussex, but thanks to his mechanical skills he got a job at a garage. All the same, he yearned to start his own business.
In March 1978, a friend told him about a workshop for sale. Domenico went to see it and signed the contract right away. It was a 90 square metre building in Cittadella Road, close to Florence’s city centre.
Domenico recalls: "The previous owner of the workshop had repaired only Italian cars, which I didn't want to deal with. Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo were total strangers to me! I knew that if I was to make a success of the business I had to find some customers with British cars to fix, so I printed out some business cards and put them on the windscreen of every Land Rover, Triumph and Jaguar I could find around Florence."
He called his new business Autofficina Inglese di Giannitti Domenico (translated it means 'English Car Repairs by Domenico Giannitti'). From the beginning of 1979, and for the next 35 years, Domenico serviced and repaired Land Rovers, as well as Jaguar, Daimler, Rover, Triumph, Mini, MG Morgan, Austin-healey, BMC and
Lotus vehicles, including some highly-prized classics owned by collectors.
Yet it wasn’t until 1992 that he finally bought his own Land Rover. While visiting a scrapyard looking for spare parts, he noticed a Series III Lightweight and immediately fell in love with the careworn ex-military model. He paid the equivalent of about 250 Euros for it and brought it back to Florence, installed a turbodiesel engine under the bonnet and nicknamed it Il Topo del Deserto ('Desert Rat'). He was so proud of the car that he took it along to all kinds of Land Rover events and gatherings, where he got in touch with enthusiasts and collectors. Domenico's legend was about to spread far and wide.
In 1997 he founded and became president of the Florence Land Rover Club, only the second Land Rover club in Italy. A year later he founded the Italian Club of Land Rover Owners and set about organising a busy calendar of off-road events and get-togethers for fellow enthusiasts.
At the age of 60, he was tired of living and working in the city, so he decided to move the workshop to a new location in the countryside. He found a suitable two-storey building with around 250 square metres of floor space.
By then he was known by Land Rover fans as the 'Series III Surgeon' because he literally knew every nut and bolt of his favourite 88- and 109-inch models. Some people even said that Domenico was able to repair their engines just by listening to how they sounded, over the telephone.
"By the end of 2018 I will have all the part numbers of Series III memorised in my head,” laughs Domenico. “I know 70 per cent already, but I'm sick of looking in the catalogue for the ones I don't remember."
The second floor of the workshop is destined to become the exhibition space for Domenico's collection of Land Rover scale models. It’s a unique collection, which he started in 1994 and which today boasts more than 1700 models of all types and in all kinds of materials and sizes.
"I spent the same amount of money I paid for my Lightweight for this 1/24th scale Esci Camel Trophy Range Rover,” says Domenico. “I had it built and painted by an expert – too bad he used the wrong shade of yellow! Anyway, it's still beautiful!
“Another one I'm in love with is a 1/43rd scale model of an 88-inch Series II I found in a shop on the Isle of Wight. It was perfect, I just couldn't leave it there."
If you are traveling in Italy, and you drive by Florence, don't forget to go visit Domenico at his workshop. You will probably find him with his head and hands inside a Series III engine, and if it's around 5.00 pm he will most likely offer you tea with biscuits – especially if you drive a Series Land Rover.
Autofficina Inglese Di Giannitti Domenico, Via del Fornaccio, 7, 50012 Vallina, FLORENCE, ITALY. Tel: 0039 055 355693