Modifications
Inherited off my father as he had bought the Lancia brand new in 1979 in Hong Kong. Was on special order when he ordered it in the mid 70s and took several years till it arrived. At one stage, he had totally forgotten he had ordered it as it had taken so long. So he was a little surprised and happy at the same time. It was a wedding present to my step mother, but he drove it most of the time.
This was also the first car I was taught how to drive, sitting on a stack of yellow pages.
I took ownership of the Lancia in 2009 as he was frail and struggled to drive it (needs a bit of effort, steering and manual gear changes). So I had the car shipped to Melbourne.
My father said the condition was good, but upon collecting the Lancia and going through it, it needed a lot of work. So the car was put onto a wait list with a local restorer which sat in his garage for close to 7 years. Work finally commenced late 2016 and stripping the car back, it revealed the extent of the rust to be far worse than what we thought. It was going to cost more to repair the rust alone than to buy a new $20K car.
So the hunt was on and located another Spider that was possibly for sale with a local collector. The Lancia was purchased for a reasonable sum and currently the restorer and myself are building one excellent Spider out of 2. My father's Spider was completely stripped down to every nut and bolt. Most of the suspension components have been used my the donor (father's Spider). The dash has been completely swapped including the steering column, steering wheel and switches. The interior will also be swapped and some trimming to match the donor Lancia.
Current stage, the Lancia is being prepped for a full respray. There were some small rust issues that did not pass the RWC, but upon inspection, it needed far more work than anticipated.
