Show me a nice old car

AlwaysOnAuto said:
Your car's stance makes it look like the 'fanalone' cause the front end to dip.
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heh! That's funny. 🙂

Over the course of the past few years, I did some things to improve the front end feel and handling. The Fulvia front end was designed around the highly crowned, secondary roads of its time, with 14x4" rims and skinny 135mm tires running +2° static camber. With more modern 14x6 wheels and 175/70 tires (per the later series of the same car) on USA freeways (which are flat and smooth), that original geometry is a handicap as it actually lifts the tread off the road on hard cornering.

So, to get the geometry into the right ballpark, I first fitted 20mm shorter spring blocks on the front spring, which has the effect of lifting the suspension arms just a little and reducing the camber. I then fitted a set of customized lower control arms that are a few mm longer than stock, which again reduces camber a touch. Static camber with this setup is now running between 0° and -0.5°; front end feel is greatly improved and cornering traction is improved by quite a bit, and the car has a nicely "hunkered down at the front" look... which you can see from this side view:

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It's not too radical, and of course the angle that you shoot from can exaggerate it easily. 🙂

(Some have asked my why I didn't lower the rear ride height as well, but there's no advantage to that with the beam axle at the rear; for road use, all you're doing then is making the suspension harsher and less compliant.)

G
 
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Godfrey said:
Thank you!

Yes, I knew that ... literally "big lights." What doesn't come up in direct translation is that fanalone is also often slang for "big breasts" ... and many of my Italian friends giggle unceasingly when I refer to the setup as "fanalone" ... 😇🤣

G
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I thought of the same thing -- "headlights" being slang over here too.
 
AlwaysOnAuto said:
Hate to burst your bubble @Taipei-metro, but a '65-'66 Mustang isn't required to under go a smog test to get a new license plate. All it means is the original plate was either lost or it was an out of state car brought in and licensed to run on our roads here in California.
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Actually, CARB rules apply to American cars 1965 and later, and foreign cars 1968 and later. The smog compliance requirements for 1965 to 1968 American automobiles are rather minimal, but they were put in place to reduce the number of engine swaps on 1968 and later cars to earlier powertrains.

I learned this while I was researching how to certify and license a 1973 Lancia Fulvia Coupé from The Netherlands I was planning to import. The big stickler for getting title and registration in California is getting through the CARB inspection... It can be done, but requires a bit of politicking with the inspection process, and at the time I didn't know anyone who could help me with the politics. I decided to avoid the whole game and hunted for a 1967 model on that basis.

G
 
All of these were taken in 2022 on our vacation to the SW Desert region of the US (Multi-state driving tour). Camera was a Canon FT with FL 50/1.4 using a yellow or red filter (didn't note which when I took the pictures). Film was Fuji Acros 100.

At Silverton, CO in 2022:
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At Silverton, CO:
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Somewhere in the SW USA Desert:
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At the Painted Desert Visitor's Center:
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Chris
 
When I was a kid, my Dad had one of these and I learned to drive in it.
This isn't my Dad's truck. It's one I encountered while I was out with my
camera. They did not come from the factory with an exhaust like that.
Jeep FC-150, made sometime between 1957 and 1964.

FC-150.jpg
 
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Godfrey said:
I've posted way too many photos of my '67 Lancia Fulvia Coupé already,
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As a car guy I don’t think that I would ever tire of viewing images of your Lancia..

Godfrey said:
but yesterday was the day it came home from the shop with, I hope, the last of my upgrades/modifications done ... the "Fanalone" headlight conversion ("big lights" like the rally cars and a short run of homologation specials were equipped with). And I think it came out splendidly ...
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I’m a bit torn regarding the aesthetics. But were I to own a Fulvia I too would elect to install the larger lights simply for the sake of increased brightness at night. Though I have been fortunate to never experience a driving accident over the past 48 years, I have always felt that my night vision was less than ideal. Thus a legally acceptable mod that helps to better illuminate the road at night is a very good one as far as I’m concerned.

I’m curious to know if you ever happen to watch the YouTube channel “Harry’s Garage”, hosted by Harry Metcalfe who launched EVO magazine many years ago. If I remember the back story correctly, a Lancia Fulvia Sport Zagato was the car most responsible for Metcalfe’s love of cars. He had his own example restored a year or two ago which he thoroughly documented on his channel. Those episodes highlighting the work done by the many craftsmen who worked on his car remain some of the most enjoyable YouTube content I have seen.
 
Thanks, Guth!
The Fanalone "kit" I worked with was a huge pain to install, but it came out well; I really like the results. To my eye, it gives the Fulvia Coupé a nicely aggressive look at the front end, and was what I was after when I decided to go with the standard coupe instead of the SportGT Zagato.

I've been watching Harry's Garage for some years, and watched through his entire Lancia restoration several times. It is a marvelous job, but wow! The cost of it! Above my pay grade... But so much excellent work was done and shown in the videos, it is quite amazing.

G
 
Godfrey said:
...because I'm fair blown away with the quality that a smartphone can deliver with its camera system...

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Enjoy, G
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I've gotten some absolutely banger shots with my smartphone (a modest Samsung A53). The thing that keeps me from making it my only digital camera is the awkward controls and difficulty seeing the screen and on-screen controls in bright sunlight. They make chassis for some phones that move controls to physical buttons and rockers, and I've even seen some that provide viewfinders, but those are all usually for iPhones (and most seem to drop off the market after a short time).

Chris
 
mtnbkr said:
I've gotten some absolutely banger shots with my smartphone (a modest Samsung A53). The thing that keeps me from making it my only digital camera is the awkward controls and difficulty seeing the screen and on-screen controls in bright sunlight. They make chassis for some phones that move controls to physical buttons and rockers, and I've even seen some that provide viewfinders, but those are all usually for iPhones (and most seem to drop off the market after a short time).

Chris
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I don't think that a smartphone, regardless of how good its camera might be, can ever completely replace a good dedicated camera for precisely those reasons of ergonomics and usability. I've tried a couple of those chassis/cases which embue the base device with more camera-like ergonomics and controls, but none of them come up to even the minimum level of usability that satisfies me.

In terms of devices to hold the phone properly for photography, the best I've come use are the excellent tripod mounting fixtures by Really Right Stuff and Kirk Photo, and the simple grip accessory by Moment, although this latter I only rarely use as it is clumsy to fit on the fly. One of the phone fixtures and a table top tripod are my baseline for things to carry when traveling as that presents a valuable asset that can assure top notch results with a smartphone camera, and the TTtripod is also useful for holding my regular camera when needed.

Where the smartphone camera shines is in convenience and pervasive availability. It is akin to when I carried a Minox submini in my pocket at all times ... It is simply always there in a pinch when an interesting photo op might present itself. Like this photo I made a day or three ago towards the end of my afternoon walk:


Blossom & Buds - Santa Clara 2025
iPhone 15 Pro
ISO 64 @ f/1.8 @ 1/240 @ 6.76mm​

I actually had another camera with me (M10-M + 35mm lens) but the smartphone was simply the right tool for this photo. That immediate availability and quick ease of use is what these devices are all about, to me. 🙂

G
 
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