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Lancia Aprilia - education needed
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Uncle Alec



Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Posts: 734
Location: Manchester

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:38 pm    Post subject: Lancia Aprilia - education needed Reply with quote

There's a Lancia Aprilia on eBay at the moment :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1938-Lancia-Aprilia-Ardennes-/281523108870?_trksid=p2054897.l4275

Could someone educate me as to why it is obviously French market orientated, but RHD.
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D4B



Joined: 28 Dec 2010
Posts: 2083
Location: Hampshire UK

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 4:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

does this help....

http://www.bmiht.co.uk/nick-baldwin/nicks-writings/did-you-know/
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Uncle Alec



Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Posts: 734
Location: Manchester

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 4:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It does indeed. Many thanks.
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goneps



Joined: 18 Jun 2013
Posts: 601
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 12:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Intriguing article, D4B. One theory concerning the US that I heard a long time ago is that, while they generally drove on the left in the early days of the horseless carriage when gear lever and handbrake were commonly mounted outside the body on the right, when those controls moved to the centre of the car the authorities considered their citizens, most of whom would be right-handed, too inept to operate them with the left hand. Thus the change to left-hand drive and driving on the right.

Richard
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Bitumen Boy



Joined: 26 Jan 2012
Posts: 1763
Location: Above the snow line in old Monmouthshire

PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting article. Now as I heard it somewhere along the line, the following paragraph from the article is essentially correct;

Quote:
There is all manner of uncertainty as to why different sides arose. The suggestion is that in horse riding days one drew one’s sword with the right hand and therefore, out of mistrust for fellow road users, one always tried to meet them right hand to right hand. This makes sense but falls down when one takes into account exactly the same problem existing abroad yet the solution being the opposite.


The reason, apparently, for most of Europe driving on the left is that Napoleon was left handed, and decreed that everyone should keep to the right of the road so he would have a better chance with a sword. Sounds unlikely, but there again it seems as good a theory as any of the others out there... Laughing
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Peter_L



Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 2680
Location: New Brunswick. Canada.

PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some parts of Canada continued to drive on the left until shortly after the Second World War.
The territory controlled by the French (from Quebec to Louisiana) drove on the right, but the territory occupied by the English (British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland) kept left.

British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces switched to the right in the 1920s in order to conform with the rest of Canada and the USA. Newfoundland drove on the left until 1947, and joined Canada in 1949.

Italy had a beautiful system, they drove on the left in some of the big cities and on the right in the country.

Austria and the English Channel Islands drove on the left until the German occupations. The Channel Islands went back to the left after the war.
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norustplease



Joined: 11 Apr 2011
Posts: 825
Location: Lancashire

PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sweden drove on the left until 1966, even though its home grown cars were built as LHD, probably with a view to the likes of Volvo gaining most of their revenue from exports to countries in which the rule of the road was drive on the right. Only when the Amazon began to be exported to the UK and some commonwealth countries did they they set up RHD production lines.
I have read that prior to 66, a mixture of RHD and LHD cars were sold on the home market, and LHD US cars were particularly popular.
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