Living with a Trevi

[rossocorsa]

actually i think it is early Y10 looks like another item to go in a skip then......

[Thotos]

Sunday (23rd August) was the Trevi's first "official" outing at the 11th Cotswold Economy Drive. It was a great day and the car run faultlessly covering about 600 miles over the weekend - probably more miles than it covered in the last three years before my ownership   The only problem was the passenger side window which managed to go down about 1 inch at the first Control Point and then gave up    Luckily I managed to convince the window to close again before the end of the day and before the long drive back home. Team-Trevi did very badly at the Economy Drive coming in at number 35 out of 47 entries but I very much enjoyed driving the car for the whole weekend. It would appear that nobody has loved this Trevi having had 11 previous owners to me but I will certainly be giving it the TLC this car so much deserves.  

[Thotos]

Not a lot of new work to report on the Trevi although it has been getting a lot of use as a daily driver; it copes so well with London traffic jams  

My first 'hate' of the car was the darkened rear lenses which I quickly replaced with originals but equally hateful to me were the (badly) colour coordinated mirrors. They should be black on the Trevi. Here's a 'before' photo.



I managed to get a replacement nearside mirror from Germany via ebay but by the time it got to me most of the innards were broken; was very good as a baby's rattle but not of much use as a Trevi mirror    I also managed to get another used nearside mirror so with the one off the car and the two used ones and plenty of araldite for the broken innards I set about making a good mirror.

The nearside mirror on the car seemed to be red originally and then sprayed silver but the final result was not good.



To be able to spray the mirror housings properly and also to repair the broken nearside replacement, the mirrors had to be taken apart completely.



But I am very pleased with the final result and I think the car now looks much better with black mirrors.

[Thotos]

There are a lot of other things I should be doing to the Trevi like fitting the replacement rear strut inserts and eliminating the strange noises emanating from the rear suspension but it was more important to me to fit a new stereo    'Loose' rear suspension is not such a bother when stuck in a traffic jam in London so having good 'sounds' was higher on my priority list.  So I fitted a modern CD MP3 SD-card USB 'play anything' stereo. It even has built in bluetooth and A2DP streaming so it can stream music straight off my phone with no wires attached. But most important of all it's black with blue lighting to match the black interior of the Trevi and the blue seats    I had to make a new mounting panel/bezel to fit round the stereo and even though not perfect the result is not too bad I think.



The original speakers in the Trevi are fitted to the front footwell pockets but even though I replaced them for modern two way speakers the sound wasn't very good. The car needed rear speakers but I didn't want ugly looking speaker grills on the rear shelf and I didn't want to cut holes in the door cards for speakers either. I like the 'minimalist' look of the Trevi's door cards and want to keep them that way. So I fitted speakers in the pre-cut speaker holes on the rear shelf but then I covered the whole rear shelf in blue acoustic speaker cloth. I am really pleased with the result; sounds great and you can't see the speakers.   

[lanciamad]

Liking the rear speaker idea very smart.

[rossocorsa]

great things those sd/usb /bluetooth radios is it a tevion by any chance? unbelievable bargains if you are not a label snob like the speaker idea may well do that in my VX coupe if i ever get it finished

[Thotos]

Yes it is a Tevion "Special Buy" from ALDI. Looks good, sounds great, every feature you would ever want and a 3 year warranty for just £49.99 (http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/2827_11437.htm?WT.mc_id=2009-10-05-16-34).  The remote control is quite handy in the Trevi as the unit is so low down and not easy to reach 

[rossocorsa]

We have an earlier variant in our MG best thing I ever bought (the radio not the MG )

[TreviDash]

Nice progress Theo.

I have a bag of used S3/Trevi mirrors, you should've called!

[ZAGATOVX]

Nice progress Theo.

I have a bag of used S3/Trevi mirrors, you should've called!

A bag full ! I need one for my Trevi VX.Right side. Got one for sale  ?

[lbcoupe76]

We never got the Trevi in Australia, shame really i think they look quite good and i think they would have done well here.

[rossocorsa]

We never got the Trevi in Australia, shame really i think they look quite good and i think they would have done well here.

you were probably lucky when new they were not a good move on Lancia's part  especially the crazy bent circuit board fuse box but they have their crazy mad design appeal as a retro classic. I seem to recall that someone took their trevi down south years ago so there should be at least one there if it is still alive?

[Thotos]

I haven't reported on this for a long time and that's because nothing much happened with the Trevi other than trouble free motoring. The past year or so hasn't been good to me so I couldn't spend the time I would have liked on the Trevi. But today I took the Trevi for an MOT test, it's second during my ownership, and it passed with flying colours  And it seems I covered just over 8,000 miles during the year I didn't think I had used the Trevi that much in the last year but obviously the Trevi is so good both time and miles fly by while driving a Trevi! 

[TreviDash]

8k ?? 

Fantastic news Theo 

Proof that AP gearboxes do last too.  I'm a bit jealous, tbh

[TreviDash]

Update please Theo 

[Thotos]

Not much to report really. The Trevi is in regular and reliable use; in fact so much so that there hasn't been any time for improvements and there has not been any need for repairs. I can't remember if I reported on this (had a quick look back on the thread and couldn't see it) but the front suspension has been refurbished with new bottom wishbone ball joints, new wishbone bushes, and new struts.



The Trevi took part at the Beeta Meeta meeting in August last year. In fact we had two Trevis in one place which was interesting! (photos at http://s801.photobucket.com/albums/yy292/Thotos/Beta%20Meeta%20Plus/?albumview=slideshow)

I was also 'forced' to use the Trevi for the Gamma Consortium AGM and Rally weekend as my Gamma restoration hasn't finished yet (over two years and counting but it has been painted now so can't be too much longer...)



More photos of the Gamma Consortium weekend at http://s801.photobucket.com/albums/yy292/Thotos/Gamma%20Consortium%20AGM%20weekend%202010/?albumview=slideshow

The Trevi has also been seen several times at the Ace Café Italian nights (second Thursday of every month).

Ideally I'd like to have the Trevi fully restored to its former glory but my Gamma restoration has taken much longer and cost considerably more than anticipated so the Trevi looses out unfortunately  :'(  I did buy a pair of front seats for it off ebay recently though    The problem is that they are a lovely beige colour while my Trevi has a blue interior. So I either have to find a beige rear bench seat to match or some expert use of Dylon will be required. Anybody ever tried changing the colour of cloth car seats?

[TreviDash]

You've been spotted a few times by folks!  One mate saw you hurtling along past him on the M1, in the rain 


Then, was it FWK spotted on the last series of the Apprentice?  This was filmed in North London





It's also made it onto the Autoshite pack of trump cards

[Thotos]

I suppose with 8000 miles of Trevi driving a year I'm bound to be spotted  

I don't watch the Apprentice but nobody I know who watches it spotted the Trevi! Then again you need a certain mentality to spot cars like the Trevi    

I didn't know anything about the Autoshite website either and I don't get what it's all about  

Anyway, the real reason I wanted to post on here was to say I saw a silver Lancia Trevi broken down on the M25 today. Unfortunately, it was on the opposite carriageway so couldn't stop to offer help and have a close-up butchers.

Yes, that was me  :'( Spent nearly two hours in the cold and all because of a fanbelt which the Trevi managed to turn inside-out a couple of days before and snapped it on the day    probably by turning it inside-out again while on the M25. I should have replaced it in the first place rather than simply turn it right-side up.

So you are the one that filled the bottom of the door? Not very good really is it!  

[TreviDash]

Autoshite: The main site hasn't been updated for years, it's the forum that's busy.  Plenty of funny fellas on there, all into oddball motors - the unsung cars of the past and present.


Come to think of it, I was mixing up my silver facelift door-skin jobs 
I never touched the body on the Trevi - it was the Silver Berlina I umm..  brush painted the door bottom to keep the rust at bay.  Steve Oliver had the car painted around 2006 by a cheap bodyshop, Mitcham way I think...

I have found a pic of Trevi the day after purchase.   See the door bottom 
The Delta HF wheels (Cromodora CD-?) had a wrong 45mm offset so were soon dispensed.  Looks much better with the proper set (CD-160) I think.

[Thotos]

I think the Delta wheels look quite nice on the Trevi and the offset doesn't seem wrong in the photo  Were the wheels fitted with spacers? At ET45 offset they would need about 11mm spacers to match the ET34 of the original Cromadoras. I would admit though that the car looks better on its original wheels.

The paintwork on the Trevi (except for the bootlid and rear wings) is the worst I've even seen on any car! I'm scared to wash it as the paint comes off if I rub too hard and there's no way a pressure washer could be used! The passenger door looks fine in your photo but it also does in the side photo of the car I posted above  Here's another one and it also looks fine 



These Trevi photos were taken the day after Beeta Meeta where the photo was taken for the Autoshite Trump cards showing a rusty passenger door. If only it was as easy to remove rust in real life as it is with photoshop