This is Chiara
Chiara was born in Turin in 1971. I found her under the good care of John van den Nieuwelaar, in Breda in the Netherlands. John had bought Chiara in Italy, where he was working at the time, in 1999. As he told me, he liked to take her for a spin on the weekends to go get a gelata...and to listen to the V4 reverberate of the narrow Italian streets. John now works on Fiat 500s. Chiara moved from Italy to the Netherlands in 2001.
Alex Somers from Haarlem was a big help in assessing Chiara's health. He drove down in his big Gamma-on a very stormy day-to meet me in Breda to look at Chiara. Alex takes good care of a very nice Fulvia Coupe Montecarlo special. His site is the Fulvia Infocenter.
Huib Geurink, who owns I do not know how may Fulvia's and a Flaminia too, had some good advice too. (The main part of which I am ignoring until summer, and that is to have Chiara striped and repainted.) Huib set up the excellent Viva Lancia! website. (Be sure to check out the Fulvia registry!)
So now Chiara is in Brussels. She is currently going through the import process with Van der Veeken. Hopefully, a relatively painless exercise.
Chiara's original color is "Rosso York," a bordeaux red, with a little vermilion. In 1993, Chiara was repainted Ferrari Red.
There are some (non-original) accessories on Chiara.
The aluminium rims ("Cromodora's") were an extra at the time
and actually a tad large for the car. They are no longer "Golden-colored"
and have been painted, well, in an aluminium color. The fog-lights are
"de l'epoque" (Spirelli) so I left them on. They're actually
not wired up for now, so have to do that someday. For the moment (cold
winter) I left the fake sheepskins on (Italians!) but I removed the slip-on
headrests. I will perhaps (sacrilege) put in a radio so I can listen to
some Italian opera and Italo-pop. For now, I'll jsut listen to the smeet
hum/boisterous roar of the narrow V4.
The Belgians require you to put a big fog-light on the back. Well, there
are more things that are a little odd over here.
Chiara is in good shape and I enjoy driving her. The carbs will need to be tuned thought, there is a little pull lacking in the low to mid revs of 4th and 5th gear. Huib gave me the tip of Fons Wouters in Antwerp. Another repair for the near future is to (have) put in new shocks.
Chiara weighs 970kg, is a little under 4 meters long, 2.5 meters wide, and 1.3 high (wee-high). She can turn out 90 Hp at 6,200 rpm which will bring her to 170 km/h, though I haven't tried that one yet.
