The incredible story of three Italian coupés as a complete work of art
It was a tip from my father, who, at the age of 83, came across these three cars on a walk in Castelveccana on Lake Maggiore. And the tip left me no peace.
On the way to the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Monza, I went to the place my father had described. It wasn't easy to find the graffiti bunker where three cars had probably found their final resting place.
There was neither a road nor a dirt track leading to the bunker. Only a footpath through bushes led me to three Italian sports cars. The coupés themselves must have once arrived at their destination by ship via the waterway.
The bunker, now covered in graffiti, used to be a brick factory. The woman at the kiosk in the village explained to me that so-called "Mattoni per la Casa" (bricks for building houses) were produced there. For the life of me, she couldn't explain how the cars got there.
What were the vehicles anyway? Former stolen property? An incipient collection? There was hardly any indication of the make of the three coupés, which were immediately recognizable as Italian. Only after some research on the Internet was it clear that these were three Lancia Flavia 1800 coupés from the mid-sixties.
Years ago, the company in the "parca de fornaci" (brickworks park) was closed, the cars were left lying around and rotted away from then on.
When the graffiti scene discovered the dilapidated brickwork, the cars were not spared either. It may be a hard blow for Lancia fans, but the resulting "picture" has its charm.
Brickwork, graffiti and wrecked cars merge together like in a modern art gallery.
The fact that the three Lancia Flavia Coupés had been there for a long time was demonstrated by a tree that had grown up through the floor of one of the cars and also through the dashboard. Once again it is clear that nature can live with almost anything.
The pictures can of course also be admired in full size in the Zwischengas archive .
