My 403-1404 has been put officially back on the road Monday 21 December 2015, when I took her back to Bologna (from my garage in Faenza, 50 miles); that was the first time that I drove her all by myself.  The journey was completed along the A14 highway as I didn’t have enough time to take the old via Emilia; it’s winter, days are short and the tiny rear lamps of the 403 are not very visible on a trafficked main road after dusk. I didn’t want to take any chances to be rear-ended by some dimwitted trick driver.

There are many thinks to improve upon, and the main offender is (surprise, surprise!) the electrical system and some of its components.

1- The clock doesn’t work, which is annoying after having been overhauled for the change of polarity in USA (my 403 has been converted to negative earth for practicality purposes, fitting electronic ignition etc);

2- the dead petrol gauge (the fuel sender is new) is a potential source of trouble;

3- the heater blower, which I’ve managed to operate turning several times its knob (the rheostat was probably oxidized after so many years of non-use and using it cleaned its contacts, so it’s working again) is noisy;

4) at the beginning I didn't have any lights in the instruments in any position of the rheostat, then they appeared fiddling their knob, probably a case of oxide in the rheostat exactly like for the heater blower switch;

4- there is a leak from the RH side of the rear axle;

5- other noises comes from the speedo cable; the rev counter reads 2.000 rpm for 40 mph, I don’t know if this is correct.

 
In fact the layout of my 403 is slightly different from what is described in the Driver's Handbook, so I rearranged it according to the layout of my instrument panel

Today, the worst components of 403-1404 are without doubt the tyres. I fitted, for testing purposes, the 6.00x16 Avon Turbospeed that I had bought a few years ago for the 409, as they were the standard of that time for high-performance cars; they are horrible. The 403 displays on those tyres the same erratic and sometimes frankly dangerous behaviour that the 409 had with these same tyres. I needed two hands at all times on the steering wheel to keep the car on line and avoiding careening against a truck or in the fields. Horrible. This made me grow a huge respect for guys who raced Jaguars, Ferraris and Aston Martins on those tyres, they must have been really brave. I saw them fitted on the DB4GT Zagato that Aston Martin showed at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show and I really can’t understand why they used those tyres when Lancia had already fitted its Aurelias with the first Michelin radial tyre in 1951….

Now I know that a set of Michelin X will change all that, but I’ll wait to sort out the other little problems before sending £800+ to Mr Longstone for a poker of French radials

26 December 2015, Santo Stefano (my name-day): 403-1404 arrives in my garage

Panel instruments' lights did work, at the beginning of the 'running-in' phase, only fiddling a bit with their rheostat....they do not make a lot of light but when you are driving at night even this feeble glow gives you some additional confidence in the car 

The original tank sender was useless but it is a quite common unit, identical to the one fitted to my 1949 MM, so I was able to buy a new one. Still, the petrol gauge didn't work during the first tests; Mimmo fixed it and the rheostat of the panel lights

The rear quarter window latches, quite rare now, were luckily in good shape and needed only to be rechromed