Why Lancia Deserves to be Saved

[GTR233]

My grandmother had a nice white fulvia 2+2... But that car eated as oil as fuel and was not really reliable so she sold it and she bought a triumph...well, no more reliable than lancia
Lately, lancia was only rebadged chrysler in europe : sad that these 2 legendary brands are quite dead now
My father had a chrysler 300 and this was a very nice/robust car : he only changed distribution/springs/automatic gearbox and nothing else
Back to lancia, agree that I miss beta/037/stratos/delta : rally is DNA of lancia and I hope they will come back one day to fight against citroën-VW-toyota and so on

 

[Jonny Austin]

The problem with so many 'brands' is that they are just stickers these days. Way back, each brand had their own factory and design office, it was actually unique.

Now, Lancia, Bugatti, Alfa, Lamborghini and probably many others are swallowed by huge corporations.

The cars have become way better I'm sure, but that brand identity was lost. Strangely (to me anyway) people like stickers and pay the premium. To me it has lost its value and you're just buying a more expensive Volkswagen with some pointy bits and a bit more leather..

It can't really work anymore, because lots of small manufacturers would probably mean we get the quality and reliability of those times back, and nobody would accept that these days..

Would be fascinating for someone to do a study on why VW managed to turn around Skoda & Seat & why Fiat could never do the same with Lancia.They made a success of Maserati.

 

[mopro]

Lancia should start with a clean slate. With such rich racing heritage, they should build a limited production super cars or track day cars with hefty price tags, designed to interest the rich petrol head and/or battery head. Only this way they can generate enough profit to sustain the brand to the next century. Producing mass production cars will requires more money, resources and the competition is harsher.

 

[guidofoc]

The problem with so many 'brands' is that they are just stickers these days. Way back, each brand had their own factory and design office, it was actually unique.

Now, Lancia, Bugatti, Alfa, Lamborghini and probably many others are swallowed by huge corporations.

The cars have become way better I'm sure, but that brand identity was lost. Strangely (to me anyway) people like stickers and pay the premium. To me it has lost its value and you're just buying a more expensive Volkswagen with some pointy bits and a bit more leather..

It can't really work anymore, because lots of small manufacturers would probably mean we get the quality and reliability of those times back, and nobody would accept that these days..

I agree that the world has changed a lot but the greatest Lancia racecars were made after FIAT swallowed Lancia. So no change here. Lancia won A LOT while being a "sticker" of FIAT. The identity of the Lancia brand is made by the countless victories in rally and other categories and by the striking uniqueness of its cars. It is a tradition, it is a culture and they could have found young people to create new racing cars within that culture. We are not lacking that kind of creative talent in Italy. FIAT decided to put an end to this racing tradition.

The reason is rather understandable: Lancia (under FIAT and now FCA) has been producing pretty horrible road cars for a long time now and these wrong decisions brought the sales down and the brand to a dead end. Why would anyone want to spend money in racing to promote a brand that sells nothing? FCA decided that Alfa Romeo road cars have a reason to exist, and Lancia road cars have no reason to exist. So they put their money on Alfa Romeo racing cars to sell Alfa Romeo road cars. If FCA had a lot of money maybe it could afford to "push" more of its brands, but probably it is not the case.

I find it particularly sad because rally is one of those motorsports (like motorbikes) where there is still something raw, primitive, there is still danger and the individual is still able to make the difference, and that is at the very soul of authentic motorsport and Lancia represents that soul so well.

 

[DrRob]

Why not buy a Lancia Delta Futurista then?

Can this be still noted as a new Lancia automobile? I do not think so.
I presume they qualify as car manufacturer same as Singer. Are they entitled to use the brand name Lancia?
Anyways, I will refrain from stating what I think of this car.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

The issue with Lancia and FCA is they sat in the same segment as Alfa, and I'd imagine the entire motor industry learned from BL why direct competition in the same industry group is daft. VAG's products are a bit odd, SEAT & Skoda almost overlap but they've managed to keep them seperate in marketing terms at least ( somewhat ), even if SEAT do seem to pull from both Skoda & VW's own markets.

Lancia designed some nice cars, unfortunately they didn't *build* many nice cars still, I have desperately wanted a Delta Integrale since I first saw one..

 

[DaVeX↯]

"CHRYSLER 300-BASED LANCIA THEMA" was a good plan in my opinion, this is the car segment they should focus with the Lancia brand and the Chrysler line of cars can be used as base to develop a new series of car with some italian touch...

A new Delta like this would be good and a serious contender for WW Golf...

 

[simone_insane]

FCA = R.I.P. Fiat - Lancia

 

[Eric Rowland]

 

[Michel Bélisle]

I am from Canada so I have never seen a Lancia in person as they were never available here. I just visited their website https://www.lancia.com/ and it just looks sad. They seem to have one car in various packages pimped by some super model ladies. Is that it? Am I get this right?

 

[Sim Strata]

Lancia as a company should die. It deserves to. Let somebody with some cash, connections and passion to buy the name and make some proper stuff one again.

 

[ozm8ey]

actually i remember the lancia being OP in the first forza horizon rally expansion.

 

[Sky]

bring back autobianchi

 

[Koen Verlinde]

When even Brabham can come back after almost 30 years, Lancia will be able as well.

It's in the end just branding. And although I get happy from seeing the Alfa-Romeo logo on my daily driver, I know it's mostly Fiat-Chrysler underneath with maybe a few % of Alfa-Romeo added, mostly styling and maybe a bit sportier suspension.

I mean, even the best petrolheads know the new Lambo Urus is just an overpriced version of the already overpriced QS7 which is already an overpriced version of a Touareg.

 

[delpinsky]

New "Lancia" Stratos built by Manifattura Automobili Torino (MAT), owned by Paolo Garella, former Pininfarina. Lancia group is not involved in the making. The number of units produced for this Stratos 2018 is just 25 and the price will be around 550.000€

 

[Sim Strata]

It's in the end just branding. And although I get happy from seeing the Alfa-Romeo logo on my daily driver, I know it's mostly Fiat-Chrysler underneath with maybe a few % of Alfa-Romeo added, mostly styling and maybe a bit sportier suspension.

I disagree. Alfa has retained its design philosophy, as a petrol head magnet, through he decades. Chrysler could never make an Alfa and Alfa would never want to make a Chrysler. If you know what I mean.

 

[Andrew Harper]

My first car was a FIAT and in the local FIAT garage where I got the car serviced they had a Delta Integrale.

Wasn't one of the final versions but something like an Evo1 or Evo2 if I remember. Looked brilliant in the showroom.

However as people have said the inside was straight from the 70's, all hard plastic and cheap rubber trim. Looked awful if I'm being honest but the outside was pure rally car.

You kind of really bought them for the name and the history. However a bit like a 70's Ferrari, they were pure Italian temperament. They rusted, broke down, fell to bits and required a very patient owner. The Integrale's only really came in LHD as well.

I came close to buying one about ten years ago but common sense took over (no dealers in the UK as FIAT shut them all down in the early 90's, no parts were really available, insurance was insane, had the potential to be a really tough ownership experience).

I do kick myself slightly though as the values have gone through the roof, link to classic car listings below...

People are now asking for £44k for and Evo2 which is insane.

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1042036

So yes it's really sad that the company is now a one make marque. Would be great if they made low volume reasonably priced sports cars again. I'm actually surprised they are still around. When the dealerships were removed from most of Europe it was pretty much expected that Lancia would cease to exist soon after.

Oddly though when I was in Modena some years ago, there were quite a few of the new model car around. So Italians certainly are patriotic in their car choices.

The Delta Integrale still pops it's head up every so often, an Italian tuning firm can turn it into a carbon fibre monster (with the rear doors removed) if you wish, for £270,000...

https://www.evo.co.uk/lancia/integr...futurista-is-a-delta-integrale-reimagined-for

Really nice vid of the Evo 2

 

[Emery]

Would be fascinating for someone to do a study on why VW managed to turn around Skoda & Seat & why Fiat could never do the same with Lancia.They made a success of Maserati.

It wasn't hard to make a success of Maserati because you can only go up in the world from the Maserati Bi-Trouble which is the last model most people remember.

 

[Nico]

A small, minor detail. The very first production road car with an active spoiler wasn't the VW Corrado as millions of people (cough-Americans-cough) believe. It was the Ferrari-engined Lancia Thema 8.32 from 1986.

 

[Denetron]

Other than the Integrale lets face it Lancia made terrible cars that were unreliable & rusted through in no time.

You don't know what you're talking about. Betas had rust problems, but Beta was made years before Delta Integrale. Modern Lancias are not unreliable nor rusty. I had a Lybra for 9 years, always kept outside (in alpine winters) and sold at 230000km. Not any noise from the interiors, no mechanical problem, good comfort. It's not a sportscar and some details could have been made better, but still really good value and really affordable to keep.