If I were to ask you to name an innovative, Italian sports car manufacturer, chances are good you would instinctively reply, Ferrari. If I were to then ask you to name one of the oldest Italian automobile manufacturers in continuous production, you very well might answer either Fiat or Alfa Romeo. And while all these answers would be technically correct, the vast majority of enthusiast would overlook the one Italian manufacturer that ticks all these boxes—Lancia.
The founding father of this most venerable Turninese manufacturer was Vicenzo Lancia, born on August 24, 1881, the son of a Piedmont region soup canner. Raised in Fobello, just 100 kilometers northeast of Turin, the young Lancia showed an early facility with both numbers and things mechanical. While trained in accountancy, in 1898, Vicenzo took up a position with the bicycle manufacturer/importer Ceirano, in Turin. However, the arc of Lancia’s life would be forever altered when, in 1899, a small group of investors took over Ceirano to form a new company dedicated to manufacturing automobiles. This new automotive concern would call itself FIAT.
Lancia was quickly assimilated into the new company where he served as an inspector and test driver. But, by 1900, when FIAT began proving the quality of their vehicles in competition, Vicenzo Lancia quickly became one of the company’s most accomplished racing drivers. In 1904, Lancia won the grueling 231-mile Coppa Florio, with a record setting average speed of 72 mph.
Despite becoming one of the top drivers of his day, in 1906, Lancia gave up both racing and Fiat and with a partner, Claudio Fogolin, formed a new company, Lancia & C. Fabbrica Automobili, on November 29th. The new company’s first offering was the 12 HP (Tipo 51), which featured a 28 hp, 4-cylinder engine. Lancia’s early offerings were well received, both in terms of their engineering and performance.
After the intervention of World War I, Lancia resumed production of passenger cars and immediately began preliminary development work on a ground-breaking new vehicle, the Lambda. The first Lambda prototype was tested on September 1, 1921 and was revolutionary for its time. The Lambda was the first production automobile to feature monocoque construction, that is to say a frame-less vehicle where the body also served as a structural chassis. Yet monocoque construction was but one of several cutting edge firsts in the Lambda, which also was the first production vehicle equipped with independent suspension, as well as the first to offer a lightweight, V4 engine. A technical tour de force for its time, the Lancia Lambda was produced through nine series or generations, from 1921 to 1931, with over 12,530 examples having been made.
In 1937, the Lancia company endured the first of several major upheavals that would rock the company over its now 112-year history, when Vicenzo Lancia died suddenly of a heart attack. Management of the company was taken over by Vicenzo’s wife Adele and his son Gianni, whose first decisive action was to hire away genius engineer Vittorio Jano from Alfa Romeo.
Lancia Aurelia
After the end of World War II, the Italian automotive industry was virtually decimated. Yet, just as they had done after World War I, Lancia came out swinging with a stunning, new clean sheet of paper design. On April 15, 1950, in the courtyard behind the company’s business office in Turin, Lancia debuted its amazing new Aurelia.
Having pioneered automotive monocoque construction in the 1920s, it perhaps should have come as no surprise then that, after Word War II, Lancia would be the first manufacturer to offer a production car with frame-less, pressed steel unit body construction. Yet, as advanced as the chassis was, the powertrain was equally as innovative. The Aurelia was motivated by the industry’s first production V6 engine, an all alloy, 1756-cc unit designed by Francesco De Virgilio, under the guidance of Jano, that featured hemispherical combustion chambers, overhead cams and the first use of a hydraulic cam chain tensioner. Weighing in at just 331-lbs, this new unit produced 56 bhp and was mated to an equally exotic, for a production car, rear transaxle.
Offered in a variety of body styles, the Aurelia soon was also available with more powerful engine options including 1,991-cc ( B21, 70 bhp), 1991-cc (B22, 90 bhp) and 2,451-cc (B20 GT, 118 bhp). With 50-50 weight distribution, independent sliding pillar front suspension and independent rear suspension by triangulated semi-trialing arms, the Aurelia was a remarkably potent GT package that proved to be equally well footed on both the road and track. A popular favorite among Italy’s “Gentlemen Racers”, the Aurelia racked up a stunning 2ndoverall and 1stin class in the 1951 Mille Miglia and a class victory at Le Mans. Constructed from 1950 to 1958, in six series, 18,201 examples were constructed.
Lancia D24
By 1952, Gianni Lancia recognized how valuable racing success with the Aurelia GT car had been for the Lancia brand, so he set up a separate company, Scuderia Lancia, devoted to building a new, purpose-built racing sports car.
With Jano again overseeing the project, Scuderia Lancia constructed a tubular spaceframe chassis, clothed with a Barchetta body, to embrace a 3-liter version of the Aurelia’s V6 engine. With double wishbone front suspension and De Dion rear suspension, wrapped around a 4-speed transaxle, this new D23 sports car made its racing debut at the 1953 Monza Grand Prix, where Felice Bonetto brought one home 2ndbehind a Ferrari 240 MM. While the D23 showed promising speed, Scuderia Lancia had an upgraded version ready in time for the 1953 Nürburgring 1000-kms. This newer version, dubbed the D24, featured a 3.3-liter V6 engine producing 265 hp. With an all-star roster of drivers that included Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari and Piero Taruffi, the D24 would prove to be the car to beat in international endurance racing, in ’53–’54.
At the end of the 1953 season, Fangio would drive his D24 to victory in the grueling Carrera Panamericana, with Taruffi backing him up in 2nd. Then in 1954, the D24 came into its own, with Ascari winning the Mille Miglia and Taruffi the Targa Florio.
With the team of Fangio/Taruffi finishing 2ndin the RAC Tourist Trophy and Rubirosa/Valezano finishing 2ndin the 12 Hours of Sebring, Lancia would end up 2nd, behind Ferrari, in the 1954 World Sports Car Championship.
Lancia D50
Gianni Lancia made the bold decision for Scuderia Lancia to construct a Formula One car for the 1955 season. Some have speculated that he came to this decision because he was emboldened by Lancia’s success in sports cars. Ironically, Lancia engineer De Virgilio claims that it was at least in part due to Jano’s casual observation to Lancia that circuit racing was much less expensive than road racing, as it required much less resources and staff! Either way, Jano and his team were directed to construct a Grand Prix contender for the 1955 season. Again according to De Virgilio, when he asked Gianni Lancia why, he replied, “I want to defeat Ferrari.”
As had been the case so many times before, Jano and the team at Lancia cleared the drawing boards and began the F1 project with a clean sheet of paper. At differing points in its development 4-wheel drive was considered, as well as a V10 and V12 engine. But in the end, Jano settled on a 2.5-liter, 90-degree V8 that uniquely was not only a stressed member of the chassis, but was mounted offset in the chassis such that the driveline could pass alongside the driver rather than underneath him. This feature considerably lowered the center of gravity of what would become known as the D50 Grand Prix car. As had become Lancia practice, the engine was mated with a 5-speed transaxle that featured a De Dion style rear suspension with transverse leaf spring and inboard shock absorbers. Another innovative advancement was the D50’s pannier-style, side-mounted fuel tanks, which provided both a low-mounted and uniformly distributed fuel load, as well as an early type of “side pod” to smooth the flow of air between the exposed front and rear wheels.
The new D50 had its first test run on Feb. 17, 1954, on the Caselle airfield, but testing and revisions went on for much of the 1954 season, while Scuderia Lancia was simultaneously campaigning the D24 sports cars. The D50 finally had its Grand Prix debut at the 1954 Spanish Grand Prix, where Ascari put the D50 on the pole and led the early laps before a clutch failure on lap 10 sidelined him.
Looking for a better start to 1955, a 3-car team battled for the lead in the opening round at Argentina, but all retired with mechanical troubles. Then Ascari gave the team a morale boost by winning the non-championship Valentino and Naples Grands Prix. Next on the calendar was the Monaco Grand Prix, where Ascari put the D50 on the front row next to Fangio’s Mercedes-Benz. In the race, Ascari chased the Mercedes of Fangio and Moss, but inherited the lead on lap 80 after Fangio and then Moss retired with mechanical troubles. However, shortly thereafter, Ascari lost control of the Lancia at the chicane (some say he was distracted by the audience’s reaction to Moss’s retirement) and spectacularly crashed through the hay bales and sand bags to launch himself and the Lancia into the crystal blue waters of the Monaco harbor! Castellotti would salvage 2ndplace for Lancia, but the team’s turn of bad luck would soon get much worse. Just four days after his trip into the Monaco bay, Ascari agreed, on the spur of the moment, to test drive a Ferrari at Monza, but lost control of the car and was thrown to his death.
With mounting financial troubles—both within his company and his race team—by June 1st, Gianni Lancia closed down Scuderia Lancia in its entirety and quite surprisingly, gave all of his D50 racecars and parts to Enzo Ferrari, who would go on to win the 1956 World Championship with them.
While the racing costs and travails of 1954-1955 certainly did not help, as early as 1953, the Lancia family was struggling with financial troubles and so was already in the process of selling their holdings in the company. By January 1956, Lancia was bought by Italian industrialist Carlo Pesenti and a new chapter in the Lancia story was to begin.
Lancia Stratos HF
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw Lancia focus primarily on road and rally cars, under Pesenti’s control. But by 1969, mounting financial troubles opened the door for Fiat to step in and take over control of the ailing Turinese manufacturer. During the ensuing year, an interesting series of events would lead to another one of Lancia’s most iconic vehicles, the Stratos.
At the 1970 Turin Motor Show, Bertone displayed a radical new concept car conceived by chief stylist Marcello Gandini. This space-aged, wedge-shaped creation was designed around Lancia’s existing 1.6-liter V4 Fulvia engine, but mounted mid-ship to enable the car to have an exceedingly low and highly raked front end for superior aerodynamic efficiency. One member of the design team was quoted as saying that the prototype was, “…so unusual, that we said it was like something from the stratosphere.” Apparently the bosses agreed, as they named the prototype the Bertone Stratos Zero.
Designed with the intent of interesting the now-Fiat owned Lancia into working with Bertone, this radical new design also caught the imagination of Lancia’s head of racing, Cesare Fiorio. Fiorio needed a more powerful replacement for the then aging 1.6-liter Fulvia HF rally car. With both Lancia and Ferrari now brought in under the wing of Fiat, Fiorio had tested Ferrari’s 246 GT Dino, but had determined that it’s relatively long wheelbase made it unsuited for lose terrain stages. However, after seeing Bertone’s mid-engine prototype, he saw the potential of mating a modified version of Gandini’s Stratos Zero with Ferrari’s 2.4-liter Dino V6 engine. Fortunately for Fiorio, not only was able to convince Lancia Director General, Piero Gobbato of the project’s merits, but Gobbato had previously worked as the Fiat deputy at Ferrari, so he was able to negotiate the inter-familial deal necessary for Lancia to acquire 500 Dino engines, so that they could build an initial homologation run of 500 Stratos examples. (After giving Ferrari his precious D50s, Gianni Lancia would have smiled at the notion of Ferrari giving Lancia 500 engines!)
Work began on the first Lancia Stratos HF (HF standing for High Fidelity, a nod to the “high fidelity” shown by enthusiasts for the brand) in 1971. Bertone was contracted to construct both the chassis and the body. Bertone’s chassis was a relatively short wheelbased (85.83”), rugged, sheet steel monocoque, with box-section beams extending off the back to support the transversely mounted, Dino V6 engine and rear suspension. The chassis was then clothed, by Bertone, in a fiberglass body, which was an evolution of the Stratos Zero concept, maintaining its overall wedge shape and highly raked, fighter jet-like windshield. Once the body units were completed at Bertone’s factory at Grugliasco, they were shipped to Lancia’s Chivasso factory for assembly and testing. At Chiavasso, the Stratos would be mated to an upgraded version of Ferrari’s 2.4-liter V6 engine that would eventually receive a custom 4-valve head and produce as much as 305 hp, by 1976. The first example of the Stratos HF was displayed at the 1971 Turin Motor Show, with a year of testing and development to follow.
The Stratos HF scored it first major victory when it won the Tour de France in September of 1973, after which full production began on the 500 examples necessary for FIA Group 4 rally homologation. The fully homologated car began racing in the 1974 FIA World Rally championship in the hands of drivers like Sandro Munari and Björn Waldegard, with Lancia winning the manufacturer’s title in 1974, 1975 and 1976, along with a bevy of prestigious wins like the Monte Carlo and Swedish rallies.
In the end, only 492 examples were produced between 1973 and 1978, but even so, the Stratos would firmly take its place in the pantheon of Lancia’s greatest and most innovative cars, alongside, the Lambda, Aurelia, D24 and D50.
