The Lancia Library
Since we took on full time Lancia car and maintenance in 1993 we have forever collected every piece of paper relating to the brand. Over the last 30 years we added a lot of material from TAK and Viglietti Motors. The late PW Immelman also let some paper trail including the leftovers form the Lancia Stable. We also took over the collection of Reuben Isaacs which brought the documents from former Cape Town Lancia Enthusiasts. Last not least we acquired a lot of factory documentation from the 2 stock-clearances that we acquired oversees.
But there are also negatives: WE have been building for the last 10 years, and the permanent dirt was not kind to the fragile vintage paperwork. Worst of all 2 years ago during the ill fated roof replacement, a lost of documents were forever destroyed in a flood ( We employed A local roofing company, a fatal mistake ).
All of this was supposed to be housed on the first floor in our old office space. The room is spacious and suitable, however my son has taking on music, and has claimed half oft the space as his music room, which I want the other half to restart my hobby of vintage music reproduction. Lastly to have the public walking through the house is not ideal.
Enters Khungekas coffee shop: It was always asking for a sitting space, which naturally would be on a mezzanine on top of the coffee counter. So the original plan called for this:
Then came the idea to increase the area and actually house the library on top. Years later the plan ended up like this:
So what is there to see:
- Collection of classic car magazines and Club newsletter. Prominently naturally feature the crankhandle club as well as the UK Lancia club.
Also a lot of Classic Car Africa and Markt für klassische Automobile, the leading German magazine.
Very interesting are magazines form other less know Lancia Club, like Switzerland and Australia.
The magazines date all the way back to 1990
- Many photo albums relating to Lancia present and past
- Original Lancia Service Manuals spanning from the Lancia Aurelia to the Lancia Zeta
There is also a selection of FIAT manuals
- Original owners manuals from Flavia all the way to the Kappa.
- Original Lancia Parts books from the Lancia Lambda until the end of books, which is when the microfiche took over
- Hundreds of original Microfiches
- Majors works written about the LANCIA brand.
- Papers and Photos left from the Lancia Stable
- Lancia advertising material, Original brochures from many famous cars including the Delta S4
- Original LANCIA tooling
- Original LANCIA diagnosis instruction for the later models
- Lancia Sales documentation form South Africa with chassis numbers.
- As highlight, we do showcase an IBM terminal that will be connected to an original IBM server and revive the original TAK POS system form the 90ties
- We will get an overhead projector to screen original Lancia movies from CINE-FIAT, that are not in the public domain.
The Library will be open to the Public on Saturdays. The building costs were considerable, estimated to be 40k. Hence we kindly ask for a modest contribution of R 50,- which will include a double cappuccino.
Sadly we will not hire any books out, but we can make copies where needed.
We have a large table that sits 5-6 people so you can meet on a Saturday to enjoy Italian history with a shot from the Cimbali M27
You can give Felix a ring on 021 4477616
