1969 Lancia Flavia 2000 Coupe

With just one UK keeper, this delightful Lancia Flavia Coupé made its way here from Switzerland in March 2015 – and it was driven at that, a 1,500km journey we are told it made without mishap. (The vendor also drove it 60 miles to us.)

First registered on the 1st of January 1969, this left-hand-drive car has recently had a full check and passed its MOT with no advisories. As a later model it features the updated coupé body, which many feel is the prettiest of them all.

It also has the two-litre engine and the rare five-speed ‘dog-leg’ gearbox; taken in conjunction with the Blue Scuro coupé body, we think this might just be the ultimate specification.

Always garaged here, it is only being sold because the owner hasn’t used it as much as he would have liked in the five years he’s owned the car. Being offered with no reserve, it will sell from the very first bid.

First of all may we state the obvious: the lines of the two-door coupé are utterly gorgeous, aren’t they? With very good panels, decent shutlines and an absence of the sort of day-to-day dinks and scrapes even the most carefully curated cars tend to pick up, its condition says only good things of its owners.

The boss, whom regular watchers will know is a hard man to please, simply smiled and said it is “lovely”.

We are in agreement that Blue Scuro suits it too, giving it an understated yet upmarket look we love. Clearly an older respray, it’s holding up very well and still looks terrific overall.

The badges, glass and light lenses are all undamaged and in good shape and the chromework is also decent; a polish wouldn’t go amiss but it looks to only be lightly patinated – and even that might be being overly critical.

The 15-inch steel wheels prove you don’t need 20-inch alloy wheels to make a statement. Simple yet elegant, they’re shod with matching Firestone F560 tyres, all of which look to have good tread left on them.

As we will never tire of explaining, our experience shows that matching high-quality tyres are an infallible sign of a caring and mechanically sympathetic owner who is prepared to spend the appropriate amount in maintaining their car properly. Their presence does not, of course, preclude the need for a thorough inspection - something the vendor would welcome, by the way – but it does perhaps give you an insight into their attitude towards maintenance.

There’s a small bubble of rust on the lower edge of the nearside door and, if we are being ultra-picky, then the rear light seals look like they’ve seen better days, and a decent machine polish on some areas like the offside rear wing wouldn’t go amiss to get rid of the orange peel finish but that’s all very definitely titivation rather than restoration.

If anyone still doubts just how high-end Lancia was at the time, just take a look at the speaker grilles in the front door; or the hinged brackets for the front seats; or the fuse panel inside the glovebox; or the twin-spoke, thin-rimmed steering wheel; or the base of the two steering column-mounted stalks; or even the fluted headlining.

The front and rear seats all look fabulous. Freshly recovered in leather fairly recently, they’re firm and supportive and free of anything bar the very lightest of creasing. They smell amazing too.

The rubber floor mats in the rear (heh, when you’re this damned stylish you don’t need lambs’ wool carpets…) look to be original and are protected by aftermarket overmats.

The dashboard is good too - and those delightfully simple and elegant dials are labelled in Italian, which must be worth another 10mph on the top speed, surely?

The rubber boot mat, ribbed for your pleasure, is in a decent condition. More importantly, the floor underneath it is solid and only showing the lightest sprinkling of surface rust, something that can’t be taken for granted with many Italian cars of this era...

The vendor reports that the work for the new owner to do seems to be limited to cleaning the sunvisors and getting the clock working – and you could live with that, couldn’t you?

Omicron, the Norfolk-based specialists, had the car in April 2017 as the vendor wanted it fully sorted. Racking up a final bill of more than £5,750, the work it undertook was comprehensive. The full details are attached as a two-part sheet but it comprised, in short:

Free off sticky brakes before overhauling them with new parts as necessary including a new brake servo.

Full service including repairs to the ignition system.

New Bowden cable for the driver’s window winding mechanism.

New diaphragm in the secondary throttle of the carburettor.

Full lubrication check and grease.

Despite rarely using the car (which is why it’s for sale) the owner has continued to service and MOT it every year regardless of how few miles he’s covered, and Omicron had it running beautifully. He tells us that it ran very well post-fettling but on the drive here he was frustrated that it was lightly misfiring, faltering a little until it gets up to speed.

He thinks it would benefit from a tuning; this might take the form of a can of carb cleaner and an ‘Italian tune-up’ or it might need a bit more attention.

We’ve driven it and also heard a slight knock from the front end on right-hand corners, which sounded like a simple bush or a wheel bearing to the vendor.

The underside is good and strong and even the wheelarches and sills, which almost always go, are straight and free of corrosion.

Oh, and it comes with an indoor car cover.

The Flavia’s MOT certificate expires in May 2021 and was gained without a single advisory point, something it’s been doing since 2015.

It comes with a number of expired MOT certificates plus some old invoices and bills. It also has a reprint of the owner’s handbook, a genuine Lancia concise workshop manual, and two sets of keys.

Please visit the documents section of the gallery of this listing where you will find photos of this and other paperwork to support our claim that this car has been maintained to a very good standard.

If you’d like to inspect the car prior to placing a bid – something we would encourage – then please use the Contact Seller button to arrange an appointment.

And please be reassured, we’ve undertaken a full COVID-assessment and put into place strict control measure to enable us to safely facilitate a no-contact, socially distanced viewing that includes disinfection of the vehicle before and after your viewing.

Wonderfully of-the-period, as the vendor himself put it: “if you wind down the windows, lean and breathe in you can smell 1969” – and that is exactly why we all love classic cars so much, isn’t it? The smell of leather and hope and engine oil is a heady combination and one that takes us back to our glory years when life unfurled itself at a languid pace and anything was possible.

And few models have the romance of Lancia; younger readers will be astonished to learn that the Italian firm once competed with the very best of them, building sporting and luxurious cars that were admired worldwide.

So, this is your chance to buy a car from what many consider Lancia’s swansong; although it might not have realized it at the time, the end was in sight and the Flavia was one of its last hurrahs, a car built up to a standard rather than down to a price.

Sadly, the quality of its engineering has yet to be fully realized by the classic car market, which means we think that this one will sell for between £9,000 and £15,000, which is peanuts considering the quality of the car you’re buying.

It’s also being offered as part of our Funday Friday Flutter, the time of the week when you get to sink a guilt-free beer or a G&T while browsing our No Reserve cars.

Just don’t forget to click private browsing because some of them are so tempting they’ve gotta be NSFW…

Viewing is always encouraged, and this particular car is located with us at The Market HQ near Abingdon; to arrange an appointment please use the Contact Seller button at the top of the listing. Feel free to ask any questions or make observations in the comments section below, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.