A couple of days ago I was doing my ordinary perusal of eBay, because my life is extremely exciting and interesting, when I noticed that a beautiful Lancia Fulvia had been posted up for sale. And yes, it did got me to lament the slow and excruciatingly painful death that they’ve experienced over the last couple of decades. Sadly, it also made me realize that Lancia is no longer needed or wanted in the market.
Lower that pitchfork, that doesn’t mean that I dislike Lancia. How can you dislike a marque that decided that what their midsize exec-mobile needed was the V8 engine from the very car Thomas Magnum drove? How can you hate on the brand that made rally cars too insane for Group B, and then proceeded to build more than the required 200 to keep the regulators happy.
Then there’s the Flaminia which, no argument here, is one of the most beautiful things to ever come out of any automotive factory ever. I could go on but my point is made: Lancia was an enthusiasts dream. A car that was (not very well) built to be beautiful, sonorous and engaging to drive. It was a crazier Alfa-Romeo.
And that’s where the problems start.
There is too much of an overlap between Alfa and Lancia. I know that doesn’t seem to be the case among us who know that Alfa is the one that makes the incredibly pretty cars and Lancia is the one that made the amazing rally machines, but for the normal not-terribly-interested-in-cars majority they’re just two Italian brands that aren’t Ferrari (if they even know that Lancia and Alfa exist). That’s if they even know about Lancia, at least Alfa had The Graduate’s spider for recognition. The most famous movie Lancia I can recall at the moment was Herbie’s week-long girlfriend at Monte Carlo. When Fiat bought Alfa Romeo in 1986 they had a bit of a problem trying to market the two brands outside Italy simultaneously. The result was that Alfa became the favored of the two and Lancia was left with the leftovers that remained after all its other brothers had gotten all they wanted.
They couldn’t fall back on quirky either. As cars become more and more reliable people have become less and less tolerant of faults, whether caused by themselves or otherwise. If they’re blowing an enormous chunk of money on a car, it better be both image-boosting and faultless. We don’t want the friends gossiping about how the beautiful car is in the shop again now do we? Or that I had to part ways with it because it rusted to the ground in a year. Lancia certainly had the first bit covered but as for that tricky second one well…The relationship between old Lancias and rust is extremely well documented. And unlike Toyotas they didn’t have mechanical reliability to hide behind when they became brown colanders.
The results are self-evident, three years after the Alfa acquisition Lancia got the Dedra. There’s no insanity or indeed much of anything, it’s just a car. At some point they must’ve noticed and they decided that insanity should make a comeback. However…
The Thesis is what happens when someone looks at a sad-eyed Ford Scorpio and says “Yes, this is what car design is all about. A little pinches here and there and Lancia will be back on top again before you can say ‘suck it’” it didn’t work and currently they sell Chryslers and the Ypsilon II, which is a Fiat 500 with all the goodness taken out.
Really, Lancia as we know it hasn’t existed since the mid ‘90s or thereabouts. I’m surprised it has taken so long to either been reduced to sell only in Italy or discontinued altogether. If you want something nice, Italian and a bit off-the-path you’ll have to turn to its better-off cousin, where some of the good traits of the Lancia we knew and love have started to shine through. I mean, Alfa-Romeo is selling a very pretty mid-engined sports car that’s the darling of journalists everywhere and will probably be revered for years to come.
Sounds familiar?
Outsider’s Perspective: Sorry Lancia, we’ll have to let you go
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Lancia needs to die so that the other twin may live.
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I don’t believe it. Lancia has a history just as does Alfa which was in the dustbin until the 8C. Just don’t dilute the brand with rebodied 300s. Lancia could be in the BMW/Audi sedan arena with the right car, even in the states. Fiat has the network but no mid size sedan.Let Lancia can be that car. Just don’t half-ass it like the Flavia.
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Alfa is already getting a sedan in the BMW/Audi arena. That’s the problem. Fiat isn’t going to design two totally different cars for a similar segment.
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There was originally going to be a Lancia version of the Chrysler 200. But it was cancelled. But if Alfa is going RWD only, why can’t the FWD/4WD Fiatsler bits be re purposed in an Audi like way? Then they don’t even have to make them electrically reliable.
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With the exception of the Delta Integrale, Lancia has been mostly irrelevant outside of Italy since their ill-fated attept to re-enter the US market in the 1970s. Now the Italians have lost interest.
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By the way, there is one other well-known movie Lancia – an Aurelia Spyder in “And God Created Woman” (1956).
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Mostly, but still plenty of Ypsilons round the place when I was over just recently. They’re not really worthy of the Lancia name but I’d have one over a Fiat 500. One of those odd cars that looks rubbish in pictures and great in the metal.
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My mechanic for my Alfa also works on Ferraris, Maseratis (even the Biturbo’s), Fiats, and various ecterenni (Italian cars by tiny, tiny scuderia). He loves Lancias but rarely sees them any more and says they are rarely successfully restored. He had a Beta Coupe that was there for months and finally was sold by its formerly optimistic, now turned pessimistic, owner to another optimist who towed it home. He currently has an achingly beautiful Lancia Flavia Coupe that has been there for three months that I know of, waiting for….something made of unobtanium. Its fate remains to be seen. The engineering on that Flavia is breath-takingly wierd. Opening the hood and seeing that tiny pancake flat-four makes it clear that no one sane was involved in making this thing. By comparison, my Alfa Spider with it’s all aluminum DOHC bat-winged-sump engine and DeDion rear suspension seems rather mundanely engineered.
In summary, Lancias are just too wonderful to survive in in our sad imperfect world.
Oh, here’s a picture of a Flavia Coupe
http://motoburg.com/images/lancia-flavia-coup-02.jpg-
DAMN!!! Only if the KGB or some secret service somewhere in the world reverse engineered them, then this car can be here for years to come as an “OKB-114-06” 🙂
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I think the Thesis looks better today than it did ten years ago.
I also think that 50 years ago it was much easier for a brand’s cars to have a USP than it is now. Cars were a whole lot less homogeneous than today. -
Here goes:
I like the Thesis. I really like the Thesis. I like all quirky executive sedans and the Thesis is like the essence of that, beautiful or not. -
Interestingly, Fiat sold more Lancias than Alfa Romeos in 2012-2014. Even in 2011, before the rebadging of Chryslers, they were pretty close (103k Lancia, 130k Alfa Romeo). Meanwhile, Alfa Romeo has lost half (!) its sales between 2011 and 2014 (130k to 65k). You might also want to mention that the relatively boring cars from 1995 onwards were pretty much rust-proof, as they had fully galvanized bodies.
In my opinion, it’s really sad to see Lancia die such a slow, undignified death. Even though I disagree with the “500 with all the goodness taken out” part about the Ypsilon, I agree that Lancia is not an attractive brand anymore and does not have anything you could call a promising future. -
So you’re saying that if a manufacturer made a small convertible sports car in the 60s and 70s for years and years and years and years, marketing it long after it’s expiry date, that it remains a desirable sporty brand today. Even though the basis for this ‘sportiness’, motorsport success or even participation in top level motorsport was not achieved in any way?
You’re right. MG is a potent brand because of the MGB. Fiat had the 124 Spider to keep the name alive, (and able to be shortly reintroduced) and Alfa Romeo had their own Spider. Some people even remember Triumph, who of course screwed things up for themselves by bringing out the TR7. Far too modern.
And Lancia didn’t. That’s their problem.
Winning 16 World Rally Championship titles and with the most successful model name in rallying, Delta. And with a more competent range of cars at any given time, albeit made to the same approximate standards as Alfa.
But yes. Since they didn’t make a small sports car for far too long by historical accident, they are doomed. Even though they are the sportier Marque.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–e4rN7l3l–/18k4r7brzugtyjpg.jpg -
“A car that was (not very well) built…”
Nope, this just isn’t true. Lancias of the era (even “base models”) were so ridiculously overengineered and overbuilt that Lancia went bankrupt twice (1955 and 1969), as they lost money on every single one they sold. That’s what you get when a company is run by enthusiasts and engineers, rather than beancounters.
For what it’s worth, John Surtees dubbed Lancia as “the Italian Mercedes” (back when that meant something, but that’s another story).
And if we want to get really nit-picky, only the Flaminia sedan was factory built; the other 5 different versions (!) were built by Pininfarina, Zagato, or, in case of the one you posted, Touring.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/0/07/Flaminia_collage.JPG-
Transaxle with inboard brakes for a sedan – in 1950, certainly not a sign of bad engineering. I can see that some owners in, say, the 70ies were not able or willing (expensive unobtanium) to keep up the level of maintenance. Consequently, 15y later the bad treatment rubbed off on the cars as unreliable, improvised and not well engineered or assembled.
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Or just revive the stratos and say “Fuck you Greenpeace”? That should keep Lancia around….
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