GTP Cool Wall: 1972 Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF

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1972 Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF

  • Total voters
    126
  • Poll closed .
Solid Cool.
Italian? Check.
Red? Check.
well known rally car manufacturer? Check.
Manual? Check.
Light? Check.
Oddball motor? Check.
 
Sub-Z.

Looks great, utterly unpretentious, by all accounts fabulous to drive, makes a nice noise and just about sensible enough that you could feasibly use it every day, whether you're getting groceries or road-tripping to the Alps.

Zagato Fulvia would be an even higher SZ.
 
Couldn't care less about FWD (ruins the car a bit to be honest), but the V4 sounds fantastic (there's one in my region, but I've only seen him once), it's red, italian, rally pedigree, beautiful and most of all a Lancia.

To the Ice Box!!
 
Yes, it has rally pedigree, but to me, it just doesn't have the legendary credentials of the Stratos and the Delta. Meh.
 
Was this one of the fail lancias?

Only two good ones that I know of are the stratos and the delta.
 
Sits alongside the Alfa GTA as one of the prettiest cars of it's generation.

I'd have one of these in my dream collection.

Sub zero.
 
Lancia Fulvia. Just say it out loud... fFuuuulveeyah. The only way it could be more vulgar is if that second word started with a "Vee"... sub-fragtagaliciously sub-zero.

Also, speaking of Vees... this isn't a front-wheel drive car.

What I mean is, this isn't a transverse-engined front-wheel drive car. This is a car with a longitudinally-mounted Vee 4 engine attached to a transaxle mounted in front of the passenger cabin. In other words, this is the rear half of a mid-engined Italian exotic with the rest of the car mounted behind it.

Because, you know, having the drive wheels in front makes the car great off-road. Back in the days when power levels were lower and four-wheel drive was too heavy and complex, front-wheel drive cars made excellent rally weapons. Hence the Mini. Hence the Fulvia.

Not that you would understand if you've never been rallying...

-

And not that any of that matters. What matters is that this is a Fulvia. It's a Lancia. It's very pretty. And it has a name like an Italian porn star.
 
Looks ok, not ugly but wouldn't call it pretty. Don't care about the rally heritage, means nothing to me. FWD bumps it down to Uncool.
 
It isn't really a V engine as you would think.

fulvia-motor.jpg


It is a Volkswagen VR engine before Volkswagen build them.
And the engine is mounted like it is in an Audi. All the way forward.

1975_Lancia_Fulvia_1.3_Perola_Barchetta_Corsa_Engine_1.jpg


Cool cars. Real fun if you expect to drift it and all it does is follow the front wheels. 👍
 
Dennisch
It isn't really a V engine as you would think.



It is a Volkswagen VR engine before Volkswagen build them.
And the engine is mounted like it is in an Audi. All the way forward.



Cool cars. Real fun if you expect to drift it and all it does is follow the front wheels. 👍
Click to expand...

it's also a 'hemi' ;)
 
Re: Anti-anti-FWD backlash

This car is premium evidence of the fact that FWD can be cool and get the job done, but all other things equal, every other drivetrain layout is still cooler. ;)
 
Wolfe
Re: Anti-anti-FWD backlash

This car is premium evidence of the fact that FWD can be cool and get the job done, but all other things equal, every other drivetrain layout is still cooler. ;)
Click to expand...
It depends what is required of the car. RWD or AWD wouldn't make something like a Mini cooler, because it wouldn't drive any better and would detract from some of the things that make a Mini a Mini in the first place. Also, RWD would probably make the Mini a deathtrap, and that isn't cool.

As ever with these things, it has to be considered on a car-to-car basis. Would the Fulvia be cooler as a RWD? Hard to say - it's generally considered to have one of the sweetest FWD chassis ever made, but would it be so high up the table as a RWD? Would it be as much a giant-killer with rear-drive? Would the pert rear end be spoiled by having to re-package it for a diff or transaxle? Lots of questions.

Ultimately, to see one go down the road, I'm not sure anyone really gives a toss whether it's rear-drive, front-drive or powered by unicorn farts. It's just a dinky, pretty little Italian coupe with one of the coolest badges in motoring on the nose.
 
@homeforsummer -- To me, a Mini that has been converted to MR with an engine in the boot is cooler than a Mini. The Fiat 500 is cooler than a Mini. The Clio V6 is cooler than a BMW Mini. The Alpine A110 is cooler than the Fulvia.

Coolness doesn't have to relate to competency, of course. Compromise (or deathtraps) can be cool, too. Modern automatics/DSGs/etc are undeniably efficient, but terribly lame compared to a manual transmission. Today's powerful cars on wide grippy tires are much quicker than the cars of yesteryear (and safer), but not as cool as the slower (unsafe) classics. Relatively slow and dangerous as it may be, power oversteer is stylish and intoxicating. An unstable RWD car that almost can't help itself but oversteer adds an element of giddy deviousness.

I won't disagree that the Fulvia might not have been as good of a car with RWD. But it would be cooler if it was. :)
 
Wolfe
@homeforsummer -- To me, a Mini that has been converted to MR with an engine in the boot is cooler than a Mini.
Click to expand...

It's only cooler if it adds to the driving experience. If it detracts, as it likely would, then that's less cool.

A mid-engined Renault 5 was cooler than a normal Renault 5 because the base car was just an average runabout. The 5 Turbo also has motorsport homologation making it cooler.

The base Mini is a hellishly fun car to drive. Even a lowly non-Cooper 850 feels like a gokart compared to a modern supermini.
 
Something this good looking this good sounding that drives that well, auto subbed
 
TheCracker
It's only cooler if it adds to the driving experience. If it detracts, as it likely would, then that's less cool.
Click to expand...
This. Something being RWD for the sake of being RWD doesn't seem particularly cool to me. It's little different in concept from those arguing that any car would be automatically cooler with a V8.
 
@TheCracker -- The MR Minis simply seem like a different kind of go-kart-like experience to me. I'd love to drive either one, I just give the nod to the MR ones, though part of that goes to their ingenuity.

@homeforsummer -- Which wheels are driven is a bit more fundamental than what engine a car has, because you can generally get similar power/torque out of something else. Although I have to admit that I give automatic cool points to anything that deviates from the usual I4, V6, or V8 (like the Fulvia's V4).

You know that some of "those" can hardly appreciate anything that isn't V8 and RWD, which is entirely distinct from my perspective. I can respect anyone who keeps an open mind about cars, but takes perverse pleasure in the thought of stuffing a 5.0L V8 into everything. They don't have to believe that everything needs one. I don't think everything needs RWD, but it tends to be more appealing.
 

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