The long wait before getting started
Even tho I paid my deposit in May 2017 I knew that it would be sometime around June / July 2018 before my chassis was ready to be delivered. That allowed me to spend a bit of time looking at engine options. Having narrowed my focus to the Alfa Romeo 3.2 litre engine It became clear fairly early on that there was a shortage of these engines available. Picking up a 2.5 litre or even a 3.0 litre engine was fairly straight forward and fairly cheap. Picking up a 3.2 litre engine was neither straight forward or cheap. After a few false starts I noticed an advert for a Alfa GT car which had enough issues with the sills to mean that it was unlikely to pass another MOT. The engine had a good service history and the car already had a Q2 LSD fitted. Although the state of the engine was fairly academic as it would be sent away to a specialist for a full rebuild it gave me the confidence to make an offer for the car in order to get the engine. Anyhow, a deal was quickly done, the car bought, the engine was removed and was then transported down to the Listerbell workshop before being sent off to the engine builder in Cardiff.
The Chassis:
Roll forward to early July 2018 and an email update from Listerbell with some news:
Please see attached few pictures of your chassis being made.
Your chassis is still on the table, where it will be welded up next week or as much as we would do on the jig table and then it will go into a rotisserie to be finished.
The chassis takes approximately 2 weeks to fabricate and then another week to powdercoat. After that we would fit the floor pan, which takes approximately one day.
It was eventually becoming a bit more real. I had decided that the chassis would be powdercoated in anthracite. I had also opted for the lowered floor pan which would give an extra couple of centimeters of headroom in the cabin.
From the ListerBell website: The base of the car is a torsionally rigid CAD designed space frame chassis which is constructed using a semi monocoque central structure, tubular section front and rear cradles and a full integral roll cage. The chassis has been designed to mimic certain elements of the original Lancia’s appearance whilst adding in some modern day safety features along with a few additional creature comforts.
Delivery Day:
Monday 6th August was a milestone day. The chassis and initial parts of the kit were delivered from the ListerBell workshops to the unit where the car was to be built. It had taken 15 months to get to this stage from the time I initially paid my deposit and over 3 years from the time way back in May 2015 when I first started to think about owning a Stratos.
