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Test Drive: 1970 Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF; Rally spectacular

The little car growls over the upgrade, barking at the upshifts, snapping at the down, its odd syncopated exhaust blatting in four/four time, echoing off the walls built by Italian stonemasons a hundred years ago, ringing off the trees trunks that were there when the walls were built. The liter-and-a-half of Lancia V-4 is working its magic, hurtling the poppy red Mediterranean projectile under a canopy of green, along a cracked and patched concrete highway just outside Brewster, New York, in that southeastern part of the state that is almost Connecticut. I am almost alone on the road, except for a young boy watching from a driveway on his bicycle and a road crew of Bruce Springsteen types whose daydreams of old Chevrolets and Harleys are interrupted by the Lancia’s snarl. It gets their attention, but not their interest.

 

If only they knew. If only they really understood. This is a car that challenged Porsche and Saab, Ford and Opel, Gordini and Cooper. All the rally greats of Europe. This is the car that won every major rally in Europe at least once, that finished second in the East African Safari Rally, an even which to finish alone is an accomplishment.

 

This is the World Rally Champion. This is the Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF.

 

But this car is as unknown in the U.S. as the names of those who drove it through some of the most demanding conditions: Leo Cella, Sandro Munari, Ove Andersson, Harry Kellstrom. These are not the names bandied about American water coolers. These are hard-core names.

 

But the Fulvia 1.6 HF is hard core, even among Lancias. Even among Fulvias.

 

The first Fulvia appeared in 1963, the Berlina 1C, with a 1091cc, 58-hp V4. Like the earlier and larger Flavia, it had front-wheel drive, four-wheel Dunlop disc brakes and double A-arm front suspension with a transverse leaf, while a dead axle with a pair of leafs held up the rear. Its styling was typical Italian sedan—which was to say, on the funky side of sober. Upgraded and modernized versions of the berlina survived until 1972.

 

The berlina was followed by a coupe version, first appearing at the 1965 Turin Motor Show, and about the same time the Fulvia Zagato debuted its unusual profile.

 

The HF came almost a year later. Powered by a specially tuned 1216cc engine producing 88 horsepower, the 1.2 HF had Plexiglas windows, no bumper and minimal trim to help save weight. The HF designation was derived from the HF Squadra Coirse, the race team that was becoming the official works team in 1965. In addition to road races, the team competed in rallies with the Flavia coupes and Sports and achieved notable success, including a collection of firsts in international events.

 

The success of the HF Squadra Corsa as a non-factory Lancia team was largely considered responsible for the company’s return to competition. When cement industrialist Carlo Presenti bought the ailing Lancia firm in 1956 and sold their Lancia
Grand Prix cars to Ferrari, racing was dead at Lancia. The appointment of Antonio Fessia, a brilliant engineer but no fan of racing, put a further chill on competition activities, causing the equally brilliant bur racing-oriented Vittorio Jano to sign on with Ferrari.

 

But the Fulvia HF was one for the racers. Attention to weight savings gave it a curb weight of 1,859 pounds, some 200 less than the standard coupe. But performance wasn’t up to the competion’s, and the 1.2 HF was discontinued in 1967, replaced by the 1.3 HF. To accommodate the changes in bore and stroke, the angle of the vee was decreased—but by less than a degree. The new 1298cc engine was used in all Fulvia models, but in the HF it produced 101 HP, with the race-tuned versions making as much as 122 horsepower at 7500 rpm.

 

Despite victories and excellent placings, work was begun on yet a larger version of the V-4. As with all Fulvia engines, the cylinder block was cast iron but with the crankshaft running in a separate light-alloy crankcase. There was a single head spanning the vee with a pair over overhead camshafts driven by a duplex chain. The combustion chambers were hemispherical, with valves set at 60 degrees. Interestingly, the water pump was driven not by the fan belt but by the timing change, providing coolant flow even with a broken belt.

 

The engine was installed longitudinally and canted about 45 degrees, with carburetors on the right side of the engine and exhaust exiting on the left and under. Driving the front wheels, the engine is hung out over the front similar to today’s Subaru, with the transaxle behind the axle line. A five-speed came standard with the 1.6 HF. The entire drive unit was mounted on a subframe with bolted to the unit body.

 

The engine came in two stages of tune. The standard produced 115 horsepower, but the optional “variante 1016” employed two Solex C 45 DDHF carbs, more radical cams, and an optional 1.3:1 compression ratio to produce 132 horsepower at 6600 rpm. A radical bore-out hillclimb car defined the out envelope of power with 161 horses.

 

The 1.6 HF was recognizable by its fender flares and oversize central headlights in the grille, known in Italian as “Fanalone.” With competition now firmly in mind, more than a half-dozen axle ratios were available, along with optional gear ratios, lightweight body parts, and larger fuel tanks. This is the car that would become Lancia’s standard-bearer in rally competition and would win, even before the Stratos, the World Rally Championship for Lancia.

 

The 1.6 HF was produced nominally in 1968 and 1969, during which 1,280 examples were built. It was replaced by the Fulvia 1600 HF Lusso, which was built in several commemorative version after rally successes, but being more civilized and therefore heavier, it was not as the purpose-built 1.6.

 

Of course, Italians do things a little differently than everyone else, and though production of the 1.6 HF “ended” in 1969, at least one car was built in 1970. That was the car we drove. It does not have the Fanalone headlamps, these having be replaced by the standard units, but otherwise it is all 1.6 HF, hot engine and all.

 

The seatbacks are nicely bolstered, offering a lot of lateral support, and a thick-rimmed Ferrero steering wheel has some of the Italian tilt to it, but nothing that cannot be tolerated. First gear is back and to the left, racing style, and the gearlever itself angles back, like in an Alfa but not as severe. Behind the front seats, thre’s either a large cushioned parcel shelf or a small and hard back seat. Take your pick.

 

On the dash are a large 220 km/h (136 mph) speedometer and 7000 rpm tachometer flanking a smaller trio fuel, coolant temperature and oil pressure gauges with a series of warning lights below them. An oil temp gauges lies over to the right.

With the big carbs, a quick start requires clutch-clipping to get away without bogging the engine, and acceleration means keeping the tach wound up. But that’s alright because the engine loves it. It never sounds thrashy or rough, and it has that light flywheel that makes a driver wish the transmission wasn’t synchro so double-clutching would be really necessary. Although it is going into second gear. A classic weakness of the Fulvia transaxle is a weak second gear synchro, and this is no exception.

 

At speed on a rough road the suspension is squishy-firm; it’s loose over the bumps but it seems to hold on all the better. It floats over the pavement, grabbing at bits that offer themselves up. Like a boxer dances, alert armed and dangerous, ready to go in any direction but completely under control. There’s so little “front-wheel-drive-feel”—torque steer is virtually absent—that one is tempted to get out and look for a driveshaft to the rear.

 

Flashing through a dappling of sunlight, growling, snapping and barking, cutting and thrusting, shifting up and down, the Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF is in its element. Lucky indeed is the individual in the Lancia Fulvia 1.6 HF.

 

 

 

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