Lancia design – Driven To Write

Past Perfect

A false dawn from 2003.

_{Editor’s note: The original version of this piece appeared on DTW in February 2016. Today’s version reflects a re-evaluation of the 2003 concept.}

Over the four decades FIAT Auto was in control, it had been possible to obtain an insight to the health of the parent company’s fortunes by how much development resource was drip-fed towards their habitually impoverished Lancia division. In the early years of the new millennium, despite being heavily indebted and messily extracting itself from an abortive association with General Motors, FIAT seemed primed to Continue reading “Past Perfect”

Promised You A Miracle

An Easter treat from Lancia.

Faith: (n) “A strong or unshakable belief in something, especially without proof or evidence”.

For the true believer, faith represents certainty, a confidence which strengthens and sustains through strife and adversity. Closely aligned with hope, in the absence of either quality, the penitent would find it almost impossible to abide.

It is also a word closely associated with the house of Lancia, for to be a Lancista is truly to believe. For observants, fealty to the historic and storied nameplate has carried with it an element of blind faith — a certainty that in the face of all known logic, not to mention the testimony of their own eyes, that somehow, the Turin-based carmaker would return from its latter-day revenant state to life and to light. Hope, on the other hand, has been in considerably shorter supply.

When it was announced in 2021 that Stellantis, under the stewardship of Carlos Tavares was prepared to Continue reading “Promised You A Miracle”

Concepts: 2003 Lancia Granturismo Stilnovo

The 2003 Lancia Granturismo Stilnovo concept illustrated that size and proportion matters.

Still credible. 2003 Lancia Stilnovo. Image: media.stellantis

_{Editor’s note: As a companion to this week’s Saab concept retrospective, we turn to a near-contemporary from Turin. This piece was first published on 4th October 2014 as part of the Concepts theme.}

One of the last Lancias had a five year gestation from concept car to production. In this case there were two concepts, a real one and a pre-production model. One of them was not helpful.

Lancia showed the Lancia Granturismo Stilnovo at the 2003 Barcelona motor show as a genuine kite-flying concept car, one of quite a few quite credible studies they showed around this time. Three years later these ideas were translated into the production ready Lancia Delta HPE concept which was first revealed at the 2006 Venice International Film Festival. This then took a remarkable two years to Continue reading “Concepts: 2003 Lancia Granturismo Stilnovo”

The Fourth Letter

The relative conventionality of the Delta dismayed marque aficionados in 1979, but it would go on to embody marque values of both performance and commercial longevity far beyond its seemly narrow remit.

The old guard was falling away. After a decade on sale, Lancia’s entry level Fulvia Berlina ceased production in 1973. The patrician compact saloon had proven a modest commercial success in its native Italy over that period, appealing to those who had both the means and the discernment to appreciate a such a finely wrought and technically noteworthy vehicle.

But while its mechanical specification left little to be desired, the level of complexity it incorporated would not square with that of Lancia’s new owners, who were masters of cost-control. Furthermore, its uncompromisingly rectilinear three-volume style had become widely viewed as outdated.

While legions of Lancisti will most likely Continue reading “The Fourth Letter”

Ashtrays: Lancia Thema 8.32

Driventowrite has bagged another rare ashtray: the Lancia Thema 8.32. Pretty damn fine it is, too.

The kind people at Deane Motors, Dublin, permitted me the chance to experience the lush interior and the acoustic charm of this rarest of Lancias, the Ferrari-engined 8.32 for which I am rather grateful. One doesn’t get a chance to sit inside one of these all that often.

For starters Mk1 Themas don’t clog our streets; and the 8.32 in particular is a rarer bird still. Around 4ooo of them were made. Before going on to consider the car’s general merits let’s cut to the chase and Continue reading “Ashtrays: Lancia Thema 8.32”