July 16, 2015 • 41 mins
The world class auto manufacturer Lancia has a storied history dating all the way back to 1906. Join Scott and Ben as they explore the past, present and future of Lancia.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. I welcome
to cart if. I'm Scott and on Ben. We are
here as always with our super producer Noel Epsilon brown
e Epsilon, interesting choice for a nickname, per Pernal today
(00:23):
and as our listeners, No, that's usually a clue as
to what we're gonna talk about, right just on the
on the off chance that we've talked about this before,
on the off chance that you didn't see the title
of the show, which also gives it away the letter
of the Greek alphabet, What would possibly be and how
would it be related to an automobile? Yeah, yeah, maybe
(00:45):
the best way to present that is to open by
saying that this episode comes to us via excellent piece
of listener mail from Brian m. Yeah, Brian m Man
he wrote in, and you know what, playing a little
game I guess with Brian m You know, he he
wants us to guess what the what the topic would be,
And of course we know that, so we're kind of
(01:06):
continuing that for our listeners. But if you haven't already
looked at the title in some way that you downloaded
this episode, and you don't know what it is. Play
along with us and see if you can guess what
we're gonna talk about today as we go through this email.
So here it is, he says, Hello, guys, I'm a
big fan of the podcast. Well, thank you, Brian. We
appreciate that. He says, I found it recently, and I've
been going through the archives and there's many many shows
to go through at this point, approaching the big seven hundred.
(01:30):
Uh So, he says, I'm looking through your mark History,
one of my favorite series, and I noticed a glaring omission.
This brand is legendary and motorsport and also has been
the first implement technology that has become staples across the
auto industry. On since you like making your fans guess
what you know the top item on your lists are
during your show, I'd like if you can guess what
(01:51):
brand I'm thinking of? Fair fair enough. He gives us
some hints. You give us some hints, and he gives
us some bullet points to go through as well, and
been before I read this list, they have to say
that we're gonna put some asterisk next to some of
these because, uh some may or may not be true
and there's a there's um uh, some qualification that has
to go on for a few of these. So here,
but here's this list, and it's it's a pretty good list, really,
(02:13):
it's actually pretty accurate, or close to accurate. First production
V eight, first production V six, first production V four,
first production independent suspension, first production car to have a
front axle with independent wheels, first production five speed gearbox,
first production car with a monocoque chassis, and the first
car was suicide doors without a central pillar as we
(02:36):
know them today. So that's a pretty good list. Any
guests as yet, listeners, anything yet, will wait just for
a second. Crickets, crickets, no one, someone's got it by now.
But he gives us another hint, and the hint is
that they also won the Rally Championship ten times, which
is I think the most out of any constructor. I
believe they also won an unprecedented six in a row
(02:58):
from too. So he says, by now you have the answer,
and the answer is Lance. Yeah. Lancia, the brand Lancia,
a brand that's not well known in the US, but
is a legend in the car industry. And he's right, definitely,
As there's a huge history here. That's not an exaggeration. Also, uh,
he's hitting on some issues important to me when he
(03:20):
says also worth noting you can buy a Lancia were
not a whole lot of money. The Italian counterparts are
much more expensive in the US, but Lancey gives that
Italian motoring experience at an affordable price. From the Folbia
to the Beta, Delta, Integral and the Monte Carlo, they
can be had for a fraction of the price of
other Italian marks. In the Beta offered independent rear suspension,
(03:43):
and of course Mustang. This is funny, he says. Mustang
introduced that just this year um A at two point
one Leader motor putting out one hundred and twenty horse power,
and compare that to the two Mustang with the four
point two Leader V eight that put out just one
hundred and eighteen horse power. So, um, there's clearly something
going on with the engine design and Lancia here. And
(04:04):
that is one of the asterisks that I have to
mention UM as we go through this podcast, because they're
big in the world of engine design. I suppose yes,
And Brian says one more very important thing, says, love
it if you could put together a podcast on Lancia.
It's really becoming a lost brand, Yes, the lost brand.
And that's a hint at something that we're gonna talk
(04:26):
about later in the episode two, which is um a
bit of recent history, something that came about it, even
if early, so some some kind of big news from
Lancia and uh Man. Where should we start? But I've
got I've got all those items that we've got asters,
next to engine production and all that. A little bit
about the models, yeah, a little bit about each one
(04:47):
of those things. So well, you want to start at
the beginning. You wanna started way back in the at
the beginning of the twentieth century. Yes, they're speaking of history.
Let us journey back to the twenty nine of November
nineteen o six when uh Fiat racing drivers one named
Vincenzo Lancia and his buddy Claudio Fugolin decided to join
(05:11):
forces and form what would become Lancia. Their first car
that they manufactured was called the Tibo fifty one or
also known as the Alpha, and it had about twenty
eight horsepower. It was produced from nineteen o seven to
nineteen o eight, So that's pretty that's pretty good that
they formed in o six and by oh seven they
(05:35):
were making a car. Okay, I have a couple of
things I want to say about this car. Now, he
was a race driver. He's also a test driver for
Fiat UM, so they're you know, heavily involved with Fiat
even early on in nineteen o six. And I want
to say that this car, of course, because he was
a race car driver, he was interested in lightness. He
was interested in making this car his first production car.
That Lancey's first production car very light and also had
(05:57):
a very responsive engine. So you know, it is a
nice combination for that vehicle to have. And it's one
one reason why it was so light was because it
used a tubular structure for the front actle instead of
the solid steel design of the day. And one last
thing I got to say about him, even before we
start any more history, is that Vincenzo or and my
staying is right his name correctly, Vincenzio maybe Um. He
(06:21):
was said to be extremely skilled at all things mechanical
and other. Even even master mechanics of the day would
say that, you know, this guy had it all together.
I mean, he could look at something that was very complex,
even even um, you know the foreign makes and models
and and look at them and mechanically understand them. And
just after a few moments of thinking about it, he
(06:41):
would understand how to how to fix that car. So
he's great at diagnosis and and repair as well. He
was just somehow intrinsically born what he was born with
this ability, yeah, with this this mechanical attitude. And he
was also a very talented driver. As we said, he
was a test driver for Fiat and he was all
to a pilot and an engineer. This guy was. It's
(07:03):
I don't think it's exaggeration to say he was darn
near a genius. Just a couple of things that will
come into play later. Regarding the Lancia Alpha or the
TPO fifty one or the twelve HP as it's also called,
this is the first car where they start using the
Greek alphabet naming convention, right, Uh, and I think this
(07:25):
is pretty impressive given the time. So it's n seven
or nineteen o eight is when they went into production.
They were testing at No. Seven in Italy. Yes, yes, sir,
and uh. The car's top speed eight fifty six miles
per hour. Not bad, not bad at all. Uh, and
I think you know, the point you make about the
(07:47):
structure and the weight had a lot to do with it.
But this was a bold and uh, a bold and
well received entry into the car world, and they continue growing.
In nineteen ten, they started exporting some parts to the US. UH,
(08:09):
and these components were assembled and then sold as s
g vs. But really they were you know, lancas you
know later, can we talk about, um, the export markets
for Lanca, because that's that's gonna be important when we
thought about, you know, where they ship vehicles to and
and who who still receives those vehicles and who doesn't anymore,
because that's that's also a big part of the story.
(08:30):
You know what. Before we get into the models, the
list of models, let's talk just a little bit more
about where Lancia falls in in Fiat's bigger umbrell. That's
good point because they're they're part of the owner. The
owner of Lancia today is Fiat. Now that comes about
later in the history, I believe in nineteen sixty nine.
(08:51):
I think, yeah, I think that's right. And um, you know,
Fiat now has this even larger group of vehicles that
that they have under their As I said, they're umbrella
of of makers, so our brands brothers. So let me
just kind of quickly list who Fiat has working with
him right now? How about that? All right? So there's
it's it's now called Fiat Chrysler Automobiles or f c A,
(09:13):
and there's an Italian version or or division, I guess,
and there's also a USA division. But in addition to
the ones I'm gonna list for them, uh, there's also Ferrari,
who they own n of at this point, and then Maserati,
which I believe they are one owner of. Uh. Then
there's f c A Italy as I mentioned, that has
a barth Alpha Romeo, UH, Fiat Automobiles, and Fiat Professional
(09:35):
which is like l commercial vehicles like vans and things
like that, and Lancia, who were talking about today, and
a company called VM Motori which is a diesel engine manufacturer.
And then under I guess the f C A U
S A UM umbrella is Chrysler Dodge, Jeep, Ram Trucks,
and of course MOBI, which is the parts and service
(09:56):
division of Chrysler. Really so UM FIA it has this
this larger well, it's all the subsidiaries I guess of
of f c A and Lancia falls under f c
A Italy at this point, right, and that's going to,
as we said, come into play a little bit later
in the show. So, uh, the Lancia Jodah became like
(10:18):
a series of different bus and truck chassis. Uh, this
was just something that we're doing in addition to the
cars they were making U and these were used too
for businesses, for large transport and for military trucks. That
was actually the primary use of these military because well,
(10:39):
World War One was happening right right, Yeah, and they
also you know, they continued producing these until nine So
this this part is where, in my opinion, you can
really see the company growing successfully because scoring a government contract,
(10:59):
especially in your that young is very close to a
golden ticket if you can swing it, you know, Oh yeah,
for sure, yep. And for them to carry out that
production from uh, you know, from World War One all
the way up until just about just prior to World
War Two. I wonder why they didn't hang on until
just after like through World War two. I don't know
what the reason behind that, right, it'd be interesting to
(11:21):
find that out, Yeah, it would be there's well, there
are you know, there are a couple of commonalities in
these situations that we can guess at. Uh. It could
have just been um economic downturns. It could have been
canceling of contracts. There there are a couple of distinct possibilities.
It could have been just a calculation of UH sales,
(11:42):
you know. Uh. So there's another I almost skipped it.
But there's another innovation that wasn't on Brian's list that
we should just mention. Uh. Another vehicle they released in
nine thirteen, the Theta, was the first European production car
to feature an electrical system standard. Yeah, that's right, And
(12:03):
that's a car that was built from about nineteen thirteen
until nineteen eighteen. And that's just it's strange to think
about a car prior to this point not having either
a complete electrical system or not having a complete electrical
system as standard equipment. Right. Yeah, But at the time,
this was very much a forward thinking, weird moves stranges
(12:25):
and it's groundbreaking. Somebody somebody has to so uh. At
this point, I think we're we're starting to get into
the area or we're approaching some of these claims about Lancia,
especially some of the engine UH engine debates. Yeah, sure, okay,
So like in nWo that came out with a vehicle
(12:47):
called the Lambda, and this was loaded with engineering and
design breakthroughs, one of which was the well, I can
tell you they had a floor incorporated transmission tunnel, which again,
how was that not alford in vehicle up until this point?
But but it wasn't until nWo. And then maybe the
biggest one on this thing is that UM that on
the Lambda is that it had a very narrow V
(13:09):
four engine. Now this is the first V four engine
UM in a production car, and and so Brian was
right on that one. That's that's an odd thing to do. Now,
I got a couple of things to say about that,
but that skips forward in history. So how do you
want to handle Let me do uh? Let's well, let
let me just mentioned just a couple of things. A
couple of other things about the Lamb that that we're
(13:29):
pretty good. So it was from nineteen thirty one when
the Lamba was produced. It had this independent front suspension
called a sliding pillar, which was very um I guess,
very innovative for the time, right, and they took that
design and used it in some other vehicles. Now I
(13:50):
think I know where we're going to jump. We're gonna
jump ahead a few years to talk about some engines, right, yeah, yeah,
I mean just one more quick note about that at
this lighting pillar thing. All that really means is that
the spring and the hydraulic damper were incorporated into a
single unit, which again sounds simple. It really does, I
mean when you look at it now. But again this
is back in two so again groundbreaking, it's very strange. So, um, okay,
(14:16):
let's let's talk about some of these engine things and
I'll kind of mix this up a little bit in history.
But but we're we'll come back to the production models
after or around nine, I guess. Um okay, So I
mentioned that this is the Lambdo was the first vehicle
to feature a V four engine. The very first has
a very narrow design V four engine. As it turns out, Um,
(14:36):
only a couple of manufacturers have um ever produced ever
in automotive history. Yeah, have ever produced a the V
four engine. Because usually it's an inline engine that we
see in inline four. It's not a very popular design
for cars. Now for motorcycles, yes, there's a lot of
V fours. They're used in motorcycles, but in cars. No.
(14:57):
In fact, Lancia Ford and Zazz, which is a Ukrainian manufacturer,
are the only auto manufacturers to produce the V four
engines up to this point. And again Lancy had this
extremely narrow design, so very small engine and from what
I heard, um, I think that this one was symmetrical
in that it was as wide as it was um
as it was long, and the tall it was like
(15:19):
a box almost, so very strange design. But but the
V four design is actually a smart design. It's a
it's a very balanced engine. It runs very well, it's
very smooth. I don't know why more manufacturers haven't used
that design throughout history as a matter of fact, because
it would be a great little engine to use in
just about anything. It's it's a space saving idea. It's
very small, but again with that balance, it runs so smoothly.
(15:42):
I mean, it'd be very little shake and rattling roll like. Um,
interesting that they haven't done that. And now I want
to say that Okay, he's also you know, working on
you know these Okay, this is this is a rough
way to get into this, I guess, but but you
know this is prior to is wen at it obviously,
so you know the night comes out in the lambda.
(16:04):
But then also prior to n Lancia had a patent
on two other types of engines. He had a forty
five degree V eight engine and a giant but narrow
twenty two degree V twelve engines, So he had a
huge V twelve engine also. Um, again the key to this,
so you know what I'm saying here is that it's
a very narrow design and those angles are what's important.
(16:26):
So again a forty five degree angle V eight is
something he had a patent on in a twenty two
degree V twelve. So um, that may be where Brian
is a little bit confused in his notes. Now I
want to I want to go back to the email,
and I believe and I'm not. I'm only about ninety
eight percent sure in this because we always have to
say this whenever we talk about automotive first, um, that
(16:48):
we're not. We we try to find the the the
most up to date information because someone's always gonna dig
through some you know, some archives and find an earlier example.
Sure like there's always is going to be a possibility
of an undiscovered innovation or something that was invented independently
(17:09):
around the same time. Whenever we do an historical show. Um,
and this goes for pretty much any podcast looking at
this stuff, but especially with automotive history, we have to
add the caveats. You know. There's it's it's very rare,
in um, in the world of invention in general, for
(17:29):
someone to do something unambiguously by theirselves, on their own
and everyone to agree that this was the first time. Sure. Yeah,
So with with that said, I mean we just were
very hesitant about saying someone was the first or you know,
this is the the only that's another one. We say,
that's the only. So okay, here's here's what I've got. Now.
(17:51):
On his note, he mentions the first production V eight,
first production V six, and first production V four. Now,
it's correct on the V four if we just mentioned
is correct. On the V six is a matter of fact.
The first series production V six, Uh, it comes about
in nineteen fifty and we'll talk about that when we
get to it. But um, the first production V eight,
I don't believe that's true. I think the Cadillac was
(18:12):
the first in nineteen fourteen. This is again, this is
production V eight, So series production I believe that Cadillac
in nineteen fourteen was the was the first or at
least one of the first production vates and that would
predate what um what Brian mentions here. So again I'm
I'm kind of, you know, trying to dig around a
lot of different places here and find find the very
(18:34):
first V eight and it's tough because they're single examples,
and there's even small small production runs, but very very small.
We're talking about major manufacturers with series production v A engines,
and that would be Cadillac in n right, But then
you could also were just an asterix away from saying,
you know, first V eight production in Europe or something
(18:55):
like that, you know what I mean. You know, maybe
that's correct, Maybe maybe that's what he was getting at.
I I just you know, again, maybe there was one
missing word in that email. I don't know, but but anyways,
accurate on a lot of other stuff. So Brian, don't
don't don't fear not. I guess you know, it was
a good email. And additionally, before we move on the
Lambda that we mentioned earlier, the one with the sliding pillar,
(19:18):
and that very clever V four was also Lancy's first
car to adopt a monocock chassis. Yeah. Interesting. So a
lot of again groundbreaking engineering and h and design in
just that one vehicle in and that's not long after
they first founded the company. No, not at all, which
is a surprising thing. They didn't waste much time. All right,
(19:41):
let's skip ahead of nineteen thirty one, as we said,
and one there was the what was the introduction of
the first flexible engine mounts? Now again again this is
there's another one where I gotta put an astros because
Chrysler had a similar design called the floating engine design,
and uh, well it really is just rubber mounts on
the engine. You would think that they would have done
(20:02):
that by by ninety one, but they hadn't. So again,
another groundbreaking piece of engineering from Lancia in nineteen one.
And now we're approaching a time where we'll take a
note about the founder. Unfortunately, Vincenzo Lancia passed away in
nineteen thirty seven, in uh February of that year, just
(20:27):
before his next vehicle, that Apparelia was put into full production. Yeah.
Now I've got some interesting notes about nineteen thirty seven,
but I want to go back, just for a moment
about four years prior to nineteen thirty three where they
reveal reveal the Augusta model and then and then had
hydraulic breaks and also had something very interesting, had something
(20:47):
they called wardrobe doors with no central pillars. Sound familiar,
That's what I mentioned now wardrobe doors is the same
as saying, uh, suicide doors. Remember he mentioned that the
first product vehicle with with suicide doors without a central pillar.
That's what wardrobe doors are. I think about opening a
giant piece of furniture. How they open that's a that's
(21:09):
a great example of it. But that's what they called
them in UH in nineteen they just didn't know what
to call it. Now that's the design that became very
popular later on. You know, in fact, a lot of
cars used um suicide door designs. UM. But I think
that this one is the first without the central pillar.
Now gangsters love this design as well. They like to,
(21:32):
you know, be able to open these doors and put
it was supposedly the idea was ben that they could
push somebody out of the moving car easily with suicide door,
which to me sounds a little bit like an urban
legend a little bit. Yeah, but you know, it seems
like it's kind of making it fit the fifth of
description because it worked that way, but it wasn't that.
Maybe that was why they had it. A lot of
(21:53):
cars had this feature, um, and maybe the car was
just the one that they like because it had a
bigger engine or something like it could could have been.
Who know. Still those stores looks so cool and they do.
And I love the I love the legend. Now let's
get back to seven. And it's unfortunate that he passed
away right at this point because that is when uh,
Lancey also started in racing, and they entered a lot
(22:15):
of Italian and other European country rally events at the time.
And um, they had a lot of again innovations in
the in the design that allowed them to compete in
these rallies. And one of those, or maybe a couple
of those, was was first uh the the do you
say the apparela Um had three fuel tanks. There were
(22:38):
two in car and then one that was mounted at
the on the rear right behind the driver. And they
also had four wheel drive. At the time, no four
wheel drive have been around, but to throw in a
car and use it in a rally, that's a that's
pretty big innovation so smart. Yes. Uh. They also had
some special designs for the Apparelia, including a touring convertible,
(23:02):
the torpedo military. They had some custom coaching like uh
Luigi Pagani uh tuned a barchetta that had a body
built by a boat building company. Makes sense, Yeah, it's
it makes sense when you think about it. But of
course it sounds a little unusual now. And you can
(23:24):
see the continual tradition of certain Lancia I guess um
values or practices going in, like the way that they uh,
the way that they handled steering wheel placement, no matter
which country they sold in. Uh. And of course the
fantastic engine designs, which are inspiring. So Ben, let's take
(23:45):
a step back in the timeline back to you back.
Let's do that and uh, and let's talk about the
series three are Data or URDA. And this is the car,
the first production car whether that features a five speed gearbox. Yeah, yeah,
this Uh. You know again, this is one of those
things that you'll see often in Lancia's history, stuff that
(24:07):
seems like it should be very basic or standard things.
But you know, we have to remember that there was
a time when this was stuff that no one had
tried before. That's right, somebody has to be the first.
In this case it was Lancia. Again like they've had
a lot of first Yeah. And two years later they
had another one which Brian references in his letter the
(24:28):
au really the mirrored and where he mentioned it was
with the first production V six. So this is the
first series production V six in ninety Yeah, first full
production one. Uh. They had already at this point, of course,
been experimenting with the V A in the V twelve engine,
which again is just a just a crazy crazy thing.
(24:49):
Well those it's that narrow design as we mentioned, So
it's not that they were the first with the V
eight in the V twelve, it was just the narrow design, right,
and it's a you can you can check out some
photos it too, uh, which I highly recommend if you
if you get a chance to look at it. So
where should we head next, Scott? Let's see how about
(25:09):
you know what what we're talking about engines? I just
want to mention this quickly and we'll we'll move on
from there from the nineteen fifties. But um, I want
to say that you know the the narrow angle V
four engines that we had talked about. You know, the
first one was out in ninety two. I think, um
from nineteen two through about the you know, the nineteen sixties.
In Lancia, they use that engine in cars like the Lambda,
(25:31):
the Augusta, the Artina, the Apulia, the Ardea, the Appia
and uh in the Folbia. So they used them in
a lot of their vehicles. UM, it's just that it's
a shame that it never really truly caught on that
that V four design. I mean again Ford and um
who was zazz I guess the Ukrainian YEA company the manufacturer, Um,
(25:52):
they they jumped on the bandwagon with that one. But
but I just surprised that it just didn't carry on
into modern production cars. There's another here that I don't
think maybe Brian's list, but is interesting. Nonetheless, and Scott
it said the Aurelio was also the first car to
be fitted with radial tires as standard equipment. No kidding, Yeah,
(26:12):
that's kind of strange. Again, it's weird to think about that,
but it is all right, so in the nineteen I
guess one more thing we should mention about the nineteen
fifties is that um Lancy would would loan Ferrari It's
technicians at this time and some of its designs to
help the Scood area team, which is you know, like
the the Ferrari race team win the F one championship
(26:32):
in the nineteen fifties, so uh, kind of kind of strange.
And you know that that racing heritage carries on from there.
You know, they started in what nineteen seven, we said,
by nineteen fifties they're helping out Ferrari. That's amazing. And then, um,
I guess if you want to jump ahead, we can
talk about the nineteen seventies and the nineteen well nineteen
eighties in some way, I guess. But the Lancy has
(26:54):
zero three seven or Lancia thirty seven and the Lancia
Delta S four which were the Group B rally cars
and this they had composite construction, they had twin turbo
turbo charging. UM all will drive now the this is
unfortunate though the deaths of two of Lancia's drivers were
the unfortunate end of the Group B Rally series. Now
(27:16):
UM in nineteen eighty six or a couple of fatalities,
and I think one was in the Lancia UM thirty
seven model and the other one was in the Lancia
Delta S four. But that was what eventually led to
the cancelation of the Group B series. It was just
like the you know, the uh, the straw that broke
the camels back in that case, because there were many
deaths in the Group B series or surrounding the series,
(27:37):
and again just too deadly to survive, I guess, you know,
after nineteen eighty six, so they canceled it. Um. And also,
you know, I should mention this, the Lancia Stratos is
one of my favorite cars ever. I mean it's just yeah,
I just dig the Stratos. Occasionally we'll see a kit
car version of the Stratos, and um, that's about it.
(27:57):
I mean, I've never in life, I've never in you know,
in person, seeing a lance of Stratos, and I would
love to someday. I've never even seen one in a
museum anywhere. Well, one thing that's uh, that's interesting about
that to Scott is that you don't like every Lancey car. No,
I definitely don't. I'm not crazy about Lancey cars. Now.
That's maybe maybe it's because we have not been um
(28:21):
exposed to Lanca here in the United States. Yeah, we
haven't been as familiarized and that may be the case
for some time. Yeah, I think so. And here's the
thing is that you know, unofficially now we're talking about
export markets for Lancia and and unofficially, um, you know,
in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, we were kind of,
uh I guess privileged to have a few of these
(28:43):
Lanceys kind of trickle over our border. You know, there
were a few of them here and there, but really
not that many. Very small scale importing was happening at
that point. But officially, Lancey became a brand that you
could buy here in the United States in about nineteen
seventy five and that lasted only until about nine eight two. UM.
And that was also when Fiat withdrew their exportation I
(29:05):
guess of is that that a word exportation? Exportation? Yes, okay,
exportation of of Fiat and and Lancia models at where
it kind of happened simultaneously. So in two we were
denied both of those brands here in the States. Anyways, UM,
if you want to, um, well, there's there's modern news
that I could I could bring about here at this point,
(29:27):
but we should also talk about the United Kingdom, and
there's something that um it's sort of no longer available
in the UK. But i'll tell you what I mean
by sort of. In nineteen eighty the Beta model from Lancy,
it was recalled in the UK UM and I mean
a total recall. They brought all of them back in
and crushed the vehicles UM and this was because of
(29:48):
UM while subframe corrosion problem. It caused a lot of
problems and again for them to recall all the vehicles
and have them crushed, that's a big deal and that's
something that they just never quite came back from. So
they've had bad publicity in the UK from that from
that point, and then they did come back, you know,
with with different models. But the last model to be
(30:08):
sold the United Kingdom was the Delta UM under the
Lancia brand. I think it was about n right right.
And this gets a little bit complicated because there were
all these rumors about Lancia returning to the UK to
recover from this tremendous this tremendous damage to the company's
(30:30):
reputation and brand, and that started in when they first withdrew.
So it was kind of like some people wanted them
back right away, because you don't start rumors like that
unless you kind of kind of secretly want something to
come back, right. So in two thousand and eleven, the
Epslon and Delta models came back to the UK, but
different changed. They were Chrysler's. Yeah, so the rebadged or
(30:54):
rebranded I guess as Chrysler's. But really what they're getting
there is the uh getting the the Lancia Epsilon and
Delta models, and that goes along, of course with the
merger I guess, and if you can call it a
merger where Feat really just bought right. However, this return
to the UK was short lived, and we'll find out why.
(31:16):
Japan also had a few Lancey models, not many that
were sold in their in their domestic you know what.
Three of them. They had the Folbia, the Stratos and
the Delta, I believe, And I think now they've just
got the one. They've got the Epsilon, which is also
sold under the Chrysler brand name. So um, they're there,
(31:38):
but not really there. I mean it's not at Lancia
brand anymore. So, um, well this is strange. So there's
there's new news man, right, Yeah, let's go ahead and
let the badger out of the bucket, the cat out
of the bag, adger out of the bucket. I like that. Yeah, yeah,
I mean you come up with these on the fly,
don't you. I do, I do. Uh No, I'm kidding
(31:59):
the honest with you. I have a very long list
that has spent hours researching, like which animal is best
to come out of which thing? But anyhow, that's a
whole other can of worms. I guess here is the news.
And if you are familiar with Lancia, if you are
tuning in from Europe where if you were a race fan,
then you were already uh likely aware of this. In
(32:22):
twenty fourteen last year, Fiat said that they were scaling back.
So Lancia, it's not going to be sold outside of Italy,
that's right, They're not They're they're not exporting it at all. Yeah,
that's right. So UM as of I think Chrysler will
(32:42):
be completely gone out of the UK. UM and it's
of course it's it's not going to be sold at
all anywhere at this point other than Italy. UM I
think might be kind of like the last push. I
think we're just being Italian only brand. So Ben do
you think we're we're doing justice to this brand here?
Do you think we're we're getting something not there? Because
I I know, we try to try to incorporate as
(33:03):
much information as we can and it's tough with when
we do like a full brand history. Yeah, we got
we got some of it. Um, there's so much to cover.
We could just do one entirely on Lancy as racing history,
which we didn't go into too much depth on. I'm
glad that we were able to look at some of
Brian's recommendations and there there's some really cool stuff in there,
(33:26):
especially if you're a fan of just just the mechanical
aspect of the engines themselves. You know, production hasn't ever
been huge. It hasn't been like a really massive producer
of vehicles, and and there's a reason behind that, and
that's probably why you know, the the viability of of
Lancia here in the United States was was sort of low.
(33:46):
I mean that you know, it wasn't really a car
that was one that was continually exported to the United
States from that point on. From what I say two
on um one reason and this is just one of
many reasons. But and I don't know if this is
really a problem, I mean, it's sort of a problem,
but it but it's uh, it's a it's a decent
problem to have. And here here's what I mean. Um,
(34:08):
the cars don't have a lot of commonality between the
different models, so it means that the cost of production
increases extensively. And the problem is that the demand uh
isn't quite as high as as you know, they would
like it to be, so they're not able to uh
make as much money as they would would need to
in order to continue with that type of production. Yeah,
(34:29):
think about it, because there throughout its history it's had
sporty hatchbacks like the Delta, It's had the THEMA Sedan,
and then you know, in the nineties they had the
Y Compact and those are those are cars for very
different markets. And the thing about this brand is that,
you know, because they were complex, because they have you know,
a fixation on quality, because they have this uh this
(34:51):
need to be um you know, uh precision, I guess,
and in a lot of ways, um, they're using older
equipment you know to to do this, or were at
the time, and um, it just led to again very
expensive vehicles and essentially all these had to be handbuilt,
and they just couldn't continue with that, you know, to
to produce cars at at the scale or the scope
(35:13):
of of production that they needed to be at in
order to be considered, you know, a big player in
the world marketplace, right and predictably, of course, fans of
Lancia have reacted to this with outrage. You know you
can you can just check out there's like a Twitter
account called Occupy Lancia that sends Fiat messages. Yeah, yeah,
(35:35):
it's uh And that was in and on a bitter
sweet note. In the same year this announcement occurred. A
nineteen Lancia Lambda one the mild Meagli, a classic car
race in Italy beat in Alpha Romeo. Yeah, it's cool,
but it's kind of swan song. Since you mentioned now
(35:56):
for Mayo, I'm bringing this up anyway because earlier, earlier
we talked about this and I said, shoot, I can't
bring this up in this episode, but here it is now.
He had to say Alpha, didn't you alight? So the
Alpha Romeo, that brand is returning to the United States,
and that's with the Alfa Romeo for c and it's
gonna be sold at Alpha Romeo dealerships across the United
(36:16):
States up eighty two dealerships as far as I know
right now in thirty three states. For now, that's all
they're gonna be selling, because I checked out the site
to look, you know, at where it's available. There's one
here in Georgia. Uh. Some states have several dealerships, you know.
I guess it's based on demand. But I'm excited about
that one. And since you mentioned it, Ben, I figured
i'd just throw that in there. But but Brian, honestly,
(36:37):
there's there's a lot more to cover, as you know. UM,
I hope our listeners maybe use the opportunity to dig
into some of this history and look up some of
the automotive first of Lancia and and really investigate some
of the engineering breakthroughs in UH. UM, just dramatic advancements
that Lancia made in the automotive industry. And they really
were for a long long time a big player in
(36:57):
UH in pushing things forward for all automobiles. Really, right, Yeah,
it's it was not lightly that the guys at Top
Gears said Lancia had more great models than any other
car company. I said that in two thousand or nine.
And the thing is, I mean, for for a brand
that's relatively unknown here in the United States, I mean,
a lot of the U S listeners will stay lanceages.
(37:19):
I think I saw one of those for sale, um,
you know, in the in the back of Hemmings magazine
at one point, you know, years and years ago, I
was just not that well known here. And that the
reason is because you know, we only officially had them
here for about seven years and uh and beyond that,
you know then then it's really kind of a one
here one there. Um. I was supposed that some gray
market cars are making their way here to the United
(37:41):
States at this point, or at least in America. UM.
But again and unofficially, some of those nineteen fifties and
nineteen sixties, those uh, you know, very small um import
imported vehicles, you know, the small importation numbers, uh that
came across during those decades. They might be out there somewhere,
but they're likely show cars or something, right um. And
(38:01):
you know you know how this goes. I mean with
the world classic cars, I mean they'll show up everywhere.
So you're gonna find them at concourse events, and you're
gonna find them at auto shows, but to see one
on the road, it's pretty rare here in the US.
And I want to add one more thing that didn't
make it into the episode one, and this is just
(38:23):
a very small thing, but I thought it was super cool.
Did you know that Lancia built a limousine for the
president of Italy? I did not know that. What an
interesting choice. Huh, yeah, they it was in nineteen fifty seven.
They made a limo model of the Lancia Florida, and
they made a couple of other limousines. So are they
(38:44):
They themselves made a couple other limousines eight nine. I
just think I think that stuff is pretty cool. To
the idea of building a car for the president, I guess.
I mean, when you consider that a lot of the
cars were handbuilt anyways, or all the car were handbuilt, Um,
it's it makes sense that they would do some of
these custom one off vehicles as well. Why not? Yeah?
(39:06):
Why not? So Scott, at this time, I think we're
going to have to, uh, we're gonna have to head
on out hit the dusty trail. But uh, you know,
there's a lot of stuff we didn't get to with
Lancy as always, right, I mean, there's there's so much here,
and again, if we were to really dig into some
of the first I bet there's other smaller first that
we could find that we just haven't been able to hit.
(39:28):
But we I think we got the most of the
big ones and we did address I think everything in
Brand's email, So I'd say on this one, job well done,
but but maybe incomplete. Yeah, we've got it's a work
in progress of Brian. Thank you for your fantastic email
because this was This was really cool and it is
something that more people in the States should know about
(39:49):
if they don't know about it already. Even to us,
it was an eye opener. Yeah. Yeah, and you can
you can hear you can hear more about group B
rally cars in our sear reads that we released on
that earlier where we mentioned Lancia a few times. Definitely, Yeah,
and uh, it was I'll say it's one of our
one of our better shows. It's pretty cool. I like
(40:10):
that one a lot. And you know, of course that
led to watching a lot of Groupie rally competition and
listening to those cars. But I don't know if there's
a better sounding race car out there now that's up
for debate. I mean, because there's a lot and I
am a big fan of indie car founds, and you
know I have wanted it first, but but man to
hear those those groupie rally cars tearing through the forest
(40:31):
somewhere incredible. Yes, you check it out. Let us know
what you think. You can find that, along with every
other podcast we have ever done, at our website, car
Stuff Show dot com. You can hit Scott and I
up on Facebook and Twitter, where we're your car stuff
hs w uh. We'd love to hear your suggestions. If
you want to take a page from Brian's book and
let us know what we should cover in the future,
(40:52):
you can tell us on Facebook, you can tell us
on Twitter, or you can send us an email directly.
We are car stuff our stuff works dot com. Beware
on this and thousands of other topics is at houstupports
dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an
email to podcast at how stup works dot com. M
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff works dot com. I welcome
to cart if. I'm Scott and on Ben. We are
here as always with our super producer Noel Epsilon brown
e Epsilon, interesting choice for a nickname, per Pernal today
(00:23):
and as our listeners, No, that's usually a clue as
to what we're gonna talk about, right just on the
on the off chance that we've talked about this before,
on the off chance that you didn't see the title
of the show, which also gives it away the letter
of the Greek alphabet, What would possibly be and how
would it be related to an automobile? Yeah, yeah, maybe
(00:45):
the best way to present that is to open by
saying that this episode comes to us via excellent piece
of listener mail from Brian m. Yeah, Brian m Man
he wrote in, and you know what, playing a little
game I guess with Brian m You know, he he
wants us to guess what the what the topic would be,
And of course we know that, so we're kind of
(01:06):
continuing that for our listeners. But if you haven't already
looked at the title in some way that you downloaded
this episode, and you don't know what it is. Play
along with us and see if you can guess what
we're gonna talk about today as we go through this email.
So here it is, he says, Hello, guys, I'm a
big fan of the podcast. Well, thank you, Brian. We
appreciate that. He says, I found it recently, and I've
been going through the archives and there's many many shows
to go through at this point, approaching the big seven hundred.
(01:30):
Uh So, he says, I'm looking through your mark History,
one of my favorite series, and I noticed a glaring omission.
This brand is legendary and motorsport and also has been
the first implement technology that has become staples across the
auto industry. On since you like making your fans guess
what you know the top item on your lists are
during your show, I'd like if you can guess what
(01:51):
brand I'm thinking of? Fair fair enough. He gives us
some hints. You give us some hints, and he gives
us some bullet points to go through as well, and
been before I read this list, they have to say
that we're gonna put some asterisk next to some of
these because, uh some may or may not be true
and there's a there's um uh, some qualification that has
to go on for a few of these. So here,
but here's this list, and it's it's a pretty good list, really,
(02:13):
it's actually pretty accurate, or close to accurate. First production
V eight, first production V six, first production V four,
first production independent suspension, first production car to have a
front axle with independent wheels, first production five speed gearbox,
first production car with a monocoque chassis, and the first
car was suicide doors without a central pillar as we
(02:36):
know them today. So that's a pretty good list. Any
guests as yet, listeners, anything yet, will wait just for
a second. Crickets, crickets, no one, someone's got it by now.
But he gives us another hint, and the hint is
that they also won the Rally Championship ten times, which
is I think the most out of any constructor. I
believe they also won an unprecedented six in a row
(02:58):
from too. So he says, by now you have the answer,
and the answer is Lance. Yeah. Lancia, the brand Lancia,
a brand that's not well known in the US, but
is a legend in the car industry. And he's right, definitely,
As there's a huge history here. That's not an exaggeration. Also, uh,
he's hitting on some issues important to me when he
(03:20):
says also worth noting you can buy a Lancia were
not a whole lot of money. The Italian counterparts are
much more expensive in the US, but Lancey gives that
Italian motoring experience at an affordable price. From the Folbia
to the Beta, Delta, Integral and the Monte Carlo, they
can be had for a fraction of the price of
other Italian marks. In the Beta offered independent rear suspension,
(03:43):
and of course Mustang. This is funny, he says. Mustang
introduced that just this year um A at two point
one Leader motor putting out one hundred and twenty horse power,
and compare that to the two Mustang with the four
point two Leader V eight that put out just one
hundred and eighteen horse power. So, um, there's clearly something
going on with the engine design and Lancia here. And
(04:04):
that is one of the asterisks that I have to
mention UM as we go through this podcast, because they're
big in the world of engine design. I suppose yes,
And Brian says one more very important thing, says, love
it if you could put together a podcast on Lancia.
It's really becoming a lost brand, Yes, the lost brand.
And that's a hint at something that we're gonna talk
(04:26):
about later in the episode two, which is um a
bit of recent history, something that came about it, even
if early, so some some kind of big news from
Lancia and uh Man. Where should we start? But I've
got I've got all those items that we've got asters,
next to engine production and all that. A little bit
about the models, yeah, a little bit about each one
(04:47):
of those things. So well, you want to start at
the beginning. You wanna started way back in the at
the beginning of the twentieth century. Yes, they're speaking of history.
Let us journey back to the twenty nine of November
nineteen o six when uh Fiat racing drivers one named
Vincenzo Lancia and his buddy Claudio Fugolin decided to join
(05:11):
forces and form what would become Lancia. Their first car
that they manufactured was called the Tibo fifty one or
also known as the Alpha, and it had about twenty
eight horsepower. It was produced from nineteen o seven to
nineteen o eight, So that's pretty that's pretty good that
they formed in o six and by oh seven they
(05:35):
were making a car. Okay, I have a couple of
things I want to say about this car. Now, he
was a race driver. He's also a test driver for
Fiat UM, so they're you know, heavily involved with Fiat
even early on in nineteen o six. And I want
to say that this car, of course, because he was
a race car driver, he was interested in lightness. He
was interested in making this car his first production car.
That Lancey's first production car very light and also had
(05:57):
a very responsive engine. So you know, it is a
nice combination for that vehicle to have. And it's one
one reason why it was so light was because it
used a tubular structure for the front actle instead of
the solid steel design of the day. And one last
thing I got to say about him, even before we
start any more history, is that Vincenzo or and my
staying is right his name correctly, Vincenzio maybe Um. He
(06:21):
was said to be extremely skilled at all things mechanical
and other. Even even master mechanics of the day would
say that, you know, this guy had it all together.
I mean, he could look at something that was very complex,
even even um, you know the foreign makes and models
and and look at them and mechanically understand them. And
just after a few moments of thinking about it, he
(06:41):
would understand how to how to fix that car. So
he's great at diagnosis and and repair as well. He
was just somehow intrinsically born what he was born with
this ability, yeah, with this this mechanical attitude. And he
was also a very talented driver. As we said, he
was a test driver for Fiat and he was all
to a pilot and an engineer. This guy was. It's
(07:03):
I don't think it's exaggeration to say he was darn
near a genius. Just a couple of things that will
come into play later. Regarding the Lancia Alpha or the
TPO fifty one or the twelve HP as it's also called,
this is the first car where they start using the
Greek alphabet naming convention, right, Uh, and I think this
(07:25):
is pretty impressive given the time. So it's n seven
or nineteen o eight is when they went into production.
They were testing at No. Seven in Italy. Yes, yes, sir,
and uh. The car's top speed eight fifty six miles
per hour. Not bad, not bad at all. Uh, and
I think you know, the point you make about the
(07:47):
structure and the weight had a lot to do with it.
But this was a bold and uh, a bold and
well received entry into the car world, and they continue growing.
In nineteen ten, they started exporting some parts to the US. UH,
(08:09):
and these components were assembled and then sold as s
g vs. But really they were you know, lancas you
know later, can we talk about, um, the export markets
for Lanca, because that's that's gonna be important when we
thought about, you know, where they ship vehicles to and
and who who still receives those vehicles and who doesn't anymore,
because that's that's also a big part of the story.
(08:30):
You know what. Before we get into the models, the
list of models, let's talk just a little bit more
about where Lancia falls in in Fiat's bigger umbrell. That's
good point because they're they're part of the owner. The
owner of Lancia today is Fiat. Now that comes about
later in the history, I believe in nineteen sixty nine.
(08:51):
I think, yeah, I think that's right. And um, you know,
Fiat now has this even larger group of vehicles that
that they have under their As I said, they're umbrella
of of makers, so our brands brothers. So let me
just kind of quickly list who Fiat has working with
him right now? How about that? All right? So there's
it's it's now called Fiat Chrysler Automobiles or f c A,
(09:13):
and there's an Italian version or or division, I guess,
and there's also a USA division. But in addition to
the ones I'm gonna list for them, uh, there's also Ferrari,
who they own n of at this point, and then Maserati,
which I believe they are one owner of. Uh. Then
there's f c A Italy as I mentioned, that has
a barth Alpha Romeo, UH, Fiat Automobiles, and Fiat Professional
(09:35):
which is like l commercial vehicles like vans and things
like that, and Lancia, who were talking about today, and
a company called VM Motori which is a diesel engine manufacturer.
And then under I guess the f C A U
S A UM umbrella is Chrysler Dodge, Jeep, Ram Trucks,
and of course MOBI, which is the parts and service
(09:56):
division of Chrysler. Really so UM FIA it has this
this larger well, it's all the subsidiaries I guess of
of f c A and Lancia falls under f c
A Italy at this point, right, and that's going to,
as we said, come into play a little bit later
in the show. So, uh, the Lancia Jodah became like
(10:18):
a series of different bus and truck chassis. Uh, this
was just something that we're doing in addition to the
cars they were making U and these were used too
for businesses, for large transport and for military trucks. That
was actually the primary use of these military because well,
(10:39):
World War One was happening right right, Yeah, and they
also you know, they continued producing these until nine So
this this part is where, in my opinion, you can
really see the company growing successfully because scoring a government contract,
(10:59):
especially in your that young is very close to a
golden ticket if you can swing it, you know, Oh yeah,
for sure, yep. And for them to carry out that
production from uh, you know, from World War One all
the way up until just about just prior to World
War Two. I wonder why they didn't hang on until
just after like through World War two. I don't know
what the reason behind that, right, it'd be interesting to
(11:21):
find that out, Yeah, it would be there's well, there
are you know, there are a couple of commonalities in
these situations that we can guess at. Uh. It could
have just been um economic downturns. It could have been
canceling of contracts. There there are a couple of distinct possibilities.
It could have been just a calculation of UH sales,
(11:42):
you know. Uh. So there's another I almost skipped it.
But there's another innovation that wasn't on Brian's list that
we should just mention. Uh. Another vehicle they released in
nine thirteen, the Theta, was the first European production car
to feature an electrical system standard. Yeah, that's right, And
(12:03):
that's a car that was built from about nineteen thirteen
until nineteen eighteen. And that's just it's strange to think
about a car prior to this point not having either
a complete electrical system or not having a complete electrical
system as standard equipment. Right. Yeah, But at the time,
this was very much a forward thinking, weird moves stranges
(12:25):
and it's groundbreaking. Somebody somebody has to so uh. At
this point, I think we're we're starting to get into
the area or we're approaching some of these claims about Lancia,
especially some of the engine UH engine debates. Yeah, sure, okay,
So like in nWo that came out with a vehicle
(12:47):
called the Lambda, and this was loaded with engineering and
design breakthroughs, one of which was the well, I can
tell you they had a floor incorporated transmission tunnel, which again,
how was that not alford in vehicle up until this point?
But but it wasn't until nWo. And then maybe the
biggest one on this thing is that UM that on
the Lambda is that it had a very narrow V
(13:09):
four engine. Now this is the first V four engine
UM in a production car, and and so Brian was
right on that one. That's that's an odd thing to do. Now,
I got a couple of things to say about that,
but that skips forward in history. So how do you
want to handle Let me do uh? Let's well, let
let me just mentioned just a couple of things. A
couple of other things about the Lamb that that we're
(13:29):
pretty good. So it was from nineteen thirty one when
the Lamba was produced. It had this independent front suspension
called a sliding pillar, which was very um I guess,
very innovative for the time, right, and they took that
design and used it in some other vehicles. Now I
(13:50):
think I know where we're going to jump. We're gonna
jump ahead a few years to talk about some engines, right, yeah, yeah,
I mean just one more quick note about that at
this lighting pillar thing. All that really means is that
the spring and the hydraulic damper were incorporated into a
single unit, which again sounds simple. It really does, I
mean when you look at it now. But again this
is back in two so again groundbreaking, it's very strange. So, um, okay,
(14:16):
let's let's talk about some of these engine things and
I'll kind of mix this up a little bit in history.
But but we're we'll come back to the production models
after or around nine, I guess. Um okay, So I
mentioned that this is the Lambdo was the first vehicle
to feature a V four engine. The very first has
a very narrow design V four engine. As it turns out, Um,
(14:36):
only a couple of manufacturers have um ever produced ever
in automotive history. Yeah, have ever produced a the V
four engine. Because usually it's an inline engine that we
see in inline four. It's not a very popular design
for cars. Now for motorcycles, yes, there's a lot of
V fours. They're used in motorcycles, but in cars. No.
(14:57):
In fact, Lancia Ford and Zazz, which is a Ukrainian manufacturer,
are the only auto manufacturers to produce the V four
engines up to this point. And again Lancy had this
extremely narrow design, so very small engine and from what
I heard, um, I think that this one was symmetrical
in that it was as wide as it was um
as it was long, and the tall it was like
(15:19):
a box almost, so very strange design. But but the
V four design is actually a smart design. It's a
it's a very balanced engine. It runs very well, it's
very smooth. I don't know why more manufacturers haven't used
that design throughout history as a matter of fact, because
it would be a great little engine to use in
just about anything. It's it's a space saving idea. It's
very small, but again with that balance, it runs so smoothly.
(15:42):
I mean, it'd be very little shake and rattling roll like. Um,
interesting that they haven't done that. And now I want
to say that Okay, he's also you know, working on
you know these Okay, this is this is a rough
way to get into this, I guess, but but you
know this is prior to is wen at it obviously,
so you know the night comes out in the lambda.
(16:04):
But then also prior to n Lancia had a patent
on two other types of engines. He had a forty
five degree V eight engine and a giant but narrow
twenty two degree V twelve engines, So he had a
huge V twelve engine also. Um, again the key to this,
so you know what I'm saying here is that it's
a very narrow design and those angles are what's important.
(16:26):
So again a forty five degree angle V eight is
something he had a patent on in a twenty two
degree V twelve. So um, that may be where Brian
is a little bit confused in his notes. Now I
want to I want to go back to the email,
and I believe and I'm not. I'm only about ninety
eight percent sure in this because we always have to
say this whenever we talk about automotive first, um, that
(16:48):
we're not. We we try to find the the the
most up to date information because someone's always gonna dig
through some you know, some archives and find an earlier example.
Sure like there's always is going to be a possibility
of an undiscovered innovation or something that was invented independently
(17:09):
around the same time. Whenever we do an historical show. Um,
and this goes for pretty much any podcast looking at
this stuff, but especially with automotive history, we have to
add the caveats. You know. There's it's it's very rare,
in um, in the world of invention in general, for
(17:29):
someone to do something unambiguously by theirselves, on their own
and everyone to agree that this was the first time. Sure. Yeah,
So with with that said, I mean we just were
very hesitant about saying someone was the first or you know,
this is the the only that's another one. We say,
that's the only. So okay, here's here's what I've got. Now.
(17:51):
On his note, he mentions the first production V eight,
first production V six, and first production V four. Now,
it's correct on the V four if we just mentioned
is correct. On the V six is a matter of fact.
The first series production V six, Uh, it comes about
in nineteen fifty and we'll talk about that when we
get to it. But um, the first production V eight,
I don't believe that's true. I think the Cadillac was
(18:12):
the first in nineteen fourteen. This is again, this is
production V eight, So series production I believe that Cadillac
in nineteen fourteen was the was the first or at
least one of the first production vates and that would
predate what um what Brian mentions here. So again I'm
I'm kind of, you know, trying to dig around a
lot of different places here and find find the very
(18:34):
first V eight and it's tough because they're single examples,
and there's even small small production runs, but very very small.
We're talking about major manufacturers with series production v A engines,
and that would be Cadillac in n right, But then
you could also were just an asterix away from saying,
you know, first V eight production in Europe or something
(18:55):
like that, you know what I mean. You know, maybe
that's correct, Maybe maybe that's what he was getting at.
I I just you know, again, maybe there was one
missing word in that email. I don't know, but but anyways,
accurate on a lot of other stuff. So Brian, don't
don't don't fear not. I guess you know, it was
a good email. And additionally, before we move on the
Lambda that we mentioned earlier, the one with the sliding pillar,
(19:18):
and that very clever V four was also Lancy's first
car to adopt a monocock chassis. Yeah. Interesting. So a
lot of again groundbreaking engineering and h and design in
just that one vehicle in and that's not long after
they first founded the company. No, not at all, which
is a surprising thing. They didn't waste much time. All right,
(19:41):
let's skip ahead of nineteen thirty one, as we said,
and one there was the what was the introduction of
the first flexible engine mounts? Now again again this is
there's another one where I gotta put an astros because
Chrysler had a similar design called the floating engine design,
and uh, well it really is just rubber mounts on
the engine. You would think that they would have done
(20:02):
that by by ninety one, but they hadn't. So again,
another groundbreaking piece of engineering from Lancia in nineteen one.
And now we're approaching a time where we'll take a
note about the founder. Unfortunately, Vincenzo Lancia passed away in
nineteen thirty seven, in uh February of that year, just
(20:27):
before his next vehicle, that Apparelia was put into full production. Yeah.
Now I've got some interesting notes about nineteen thirty seven,
but I want to go back, just for a moment
about four years prior to nineteen thirty three where they
reveal reveal the Augusta model and then and then had
hydraulic breaks and also had something very interesting, had something
(20:47):
they called wardrobe doors with no central pillars. Sound familiar,
That's what I mentioned now wardrobe doors is the same
as saying, uh, suicide doors. Remember he mentioned that the
first product vehicle with with suicide doors without a central pillar.
That's what wardrobe doors are. I think about opening a
giant piece of furniture. How they open that's a that's
(21:09):
a great example of it. But that's what they called
them in UH in nineteen they just didn't know what
to call it. Now that's the design that became very
popular later on. You know, in fact, a lot of
cars used um suicide door designs. UM. But I think
that this one is the first without the central pillar.
Now gangsters love this design as well. They like to,
(21:32):
you know, be able to open these doors and put
it was supposedly the idea was ben that they could
push somebody out of the moving car easily with suicide door,
which to me sounds a little bit like an urban
legend a little bit. Yeah, but you know, it seems
like it's kind of making it fit the fifth of
description because it worked that way, but it wasn't that.
Maybe that was why they had it. A lot of
(21:53):
cars had this feature, um, and maybe the car was
just the one that they like because it had a
bigger engine or something like it could could have been.
Who know. Still those stores looks so cool and they do.
And I love the I love the legend. Now let's
get back to seven. And it's unfortunate that he passed
away right at this point because that is when uh,
Lancey also started in racing, and they entered a lot
(22:15):
of Italian and other European country rally events at the time.
And um, they had a lot of again innovations in
the in the design that allowed them to compete in
these rallies. And one of those, or maybe a couple
of those, was was first uh the the do you
say the apparela Um had three fuel tanks. There were
(22:38):
two in car and then one that was mounted at
the on the rear right behind the driver. And they
also had four wheel drive. At the time, no four
wheel drive have been around, but to throw in a
car and use it in a rally, that's a that's
pretty big innovation so smart. Yes. Uh. They also had
some special designs for the Apparelia, including a touring convertible,
(23:02):
the torpedo military. They had some custom coaching like uh
Luigi Pagani uh tuned a barchetta that had a body
built by a boat building company. Makes sense, Yeah, it's
it makes sense when you think about it. But of
course it sounds a little unusual now. And you can
(23:24):
see the continual tradition of certain Lancia I guess um
values or practices going in, like the way that they uh,
the way that they handled steering wheel placement, no matter
which country they sold in. Uh. And of course the
fantastic engine designs, which are inspiring. So Ben, let's take
(23:45):
a step back in the timeline back to you back.
Let's do that and uh, and let's talk about the
series three are Data or URDA. And this is the car,
the first production car whether that features a five speed gearbox. Yeah, yeah,
this Uh. You know again, this is one of those
things that you'll see often in Lancia's history, stuff that
(24:07):
seems like it should be very basic or standard things.
But you know, we have to remember that there was
a time when this was stuff that no one had
tried before. That's right, somebody has to be the first.
In this case it was Lancia. Again like they've had
a lot of first Yeah. And two years later they
had another one which Brian references in his letter the
(24:28):
au really the mirrored and where he mentioned it was
with the first production V six. So this is the
first series production V six in ninety Yeah, first full
production one. Uh. They had already at this point, of course,
been experimenting with the V A in the V twelve engine,
which again is just a just a crazy crazy thing.
(24:49):
Well those it's that narrow design as we mentioned, So
it's not that they were the first with the V
eight in the V twelve, it was just the narrow design, right,
and it's a you can you can check out some
photos it too, uh, which I highly recommend if you
if you get a chance to look at it. So
where should we head next, Scott? Let's see how about
(25:09):
you know what what we're talking about engines? I just
want to mention this quickly and we'll we'll move on
from there from the nineteen fifties. But um, I want
to say that you know the the narrow angle V
four engines that we had talked about. You know, the
first one was out in ninety two. I think, um
from nineteen two through about the you know, the nineteen sixties.
In Lancia, they use that engine in cars like the Lambda,
(25:31):
the Augusta, the Artina, the Apulia, the Ardea, the Appia
and uh in the Folbia. So they used them in
a lot of their vehicles. UM, it's just that it's
a shame that it never really truly caught on that
that V four design. I mean again Ford and um
who was zazz I guess the Ukrainian YEA company the manufacturer, Um,
(25:52):
they they jumped on the bandwagon with that one. But
but I just surprised that it just didn't carry on
into modern production cars. There's another here that I don't
think maybe Brian's list, but is interesting. Nonetheless, and Scott
it said the Aurelio was also the first car to
be fitted with radial tires as standard equipment. No kidding, Yeah,
(26:12):
that's kind of strange. Again, it's weird to think about that,
but it is all right, so in the nineteen I
guess one more thing we should mention about the nineteen
fifties is that um Lancy would would loan Ferrari It's
technicians at this time and some of its designs to
help the Scood area team, which is you know, like
the the Ferrari race team win the F one championship
(26:32):
in the nineteen fifties, so uh, kind of kind of strange.
And you know that that racing heritage carries on from there.
You know, they started in what nineteen seven, we said,
by nineteen fifties they're helping out Ferrari. That's amazing. And then, um,
I guess if you want to jump ahead, we can
talk about the nineteen seventies and the nineteen well nineteen
eighties in some way, I guess. But the Lancy has
(26:54):
zero three seven or Lancia thirty seven and the Lancia
Delta S four which were the Group B rally cars
and this they had composite construction, they had twin turbo
turbo charging. UM all will drive now the this is
unfortunate though the deaths of two of Lancia's drivers were
the unfortunate end of the Group B Rally series. Now
(27:16):
UM in nineteen eighty six or a couple of fatalities,
and I think one was in the Lancia UM thirty
seven model and the other one was in the Lancia
Delta S four. But that was what eventually led to
the cancelation of the Group B series. It was just
like the you know, the uh, the straw that broke
the camels back in that case, because there were many
deaths in the Group B series or surrounding the series,
(27:37):
and again just too deadly to survive, I guess, you know,
after nineteen eighty six, so they canceled it. Um. And also,
you know, I should mention this, the Lancia Stratos is
one of my favorite cars ever. I mean it's just yeah,
I just dig the Stratos. Occasionally we'll see a kit
car version of the Stratos, and um, that's about it.
(27:57):
I mean, I've never in life, I've never in you know,
in person, seeing a lance of Stratos, and I would
love to someday. I've never even seen one in a
museum anywhere. Well, one thing that's uh, that's interesting about
that to Scott is that you don't like every Lancey car. No,
I definitely don't. I'm not crazy about Lancey cars. Now.
That's maybe maybe it's because we have not been um
(28:21):
exposed to Lanca here in the United States. Yeah, we
haven't been as familiarized and that may be the case
for some time. Yeah, I think so. And here's the
thing is that you know, unofficially now we're talking about
export markets for Lancia and and unofficially, um, you know,
in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, we were kind of,
uh I guess privileged to have a few of these
(28:43):
Lanceys kind of trickle over our border. You know, there
were a few of them here and there, but really
not that many. Very small scale importing was happening at
that point. But officially, Lancey became a brand that you
could buy here in the United States in about nineteen
seventy five and that lasted only until about nine eight two. UM.
And that was also when Fiat withdrew their exportation I
(29:05):
guess of is that that a word exportation? Exportation? Yes, okay,
exportation of of Fiat and and Lancia models at where
it kind of happened simultaneously. So in two we were
denied both of those brands here in the States. Anyways, UM,
if you want to, um, well, there's there's modern news
that I could I could bring about here at this point,
(29:27):
but we should also talk about the United Kingdom, and
there's something that um it's sort of no longer available
in the UK. But i'll tell you what I mean
by sort of. In nineteen eighty the Beta model from Lancy,
it was recalled in the UK UM and I mean
a total recall. They brought all of them back in
and crushed the vehicles UM and this was because of
(29:48):
UM while subframe corrosion problem. It caused a lot of
problems and again for them to recall all the vehicles
and have them crushed, that's a big deal and that's
something that they just never quite came back from. So
they've had bad publicity in the UK from that from
that point, and then they did come back, you know,
with with different models. But the last model to be
(30:08):
sold the United Kingdom was the Delta UM under the
Lancia brand. I think it was about n right right.
And this gets a little bit complicated because there were
all these rumors about Lancia returning to the UK to
recover from this tremendous this tremendous damage to the company's
(30:30):
reputation and brand, and that started in when they first withdrew.
So it was kind of like some people wanted them
back right away, because you don't start rumors like that
unless you kind of kind of secretly want something to
come back, right. So in two thousand and eleven, the
Epslon and Delta models came back to the UK, but
different changed. They were Chrysler's. Yeah, so the rebadged or
(30:54):
rebranded I guess as Chrysler's. But really what they're getting
there is the uh getting the the Lancia Epsilon and
Delta models, and that goes along, of course with the
merger I guess, and if you can call it a
merger where Feat really just bought right. However, this return
to the UK was short lived, and we'll find out why.
(31:16):
Japan also had a few Lancey models, not many that
were sold in their in their domestic you know what.
Three of them. They had the Folbia, the Stratos and
the Delta, I believe, And I think now they've just
got the one. They've got the Epsilon, which is also
sold under the Chrysler brand name. So um, they're there,
(31:38):
but not really there. I mean it's not at Lancia
brand anymore. So, um, well this is strange. So there's
there's new news man, right, Yeah, let's go ahead and
let the badger out of the bucket, the cat out
of the bag, adger out of the bucket. I like that. Yeah, yeah,
I mean you come up with these on the fly,
don't you. I do, I do. Uh No, I'm kidding
(31:59):
the honest with you. I have a very long list
that has spent hours researching, like which animal is best
to come out of which thing? But anyhow, that's a
whole other can of worms. I guess here is the news.
And if you are familiar with Lancia, if you are
tuning in from Europe where if you were a race fan,
then you were already uh likely aware of this. In
(32:22):
twenty fourteen last year, Fiat said that they were scaling back.
So Lancia, it's not going to be sold outside of Italy,
that's right, They're not They're they're not exporting it at all. Yeah,
that's right. So UM as of I think Chrysler will
(32:42):
be completely gone out of the UK. UM and it's
of course it's it's not going to be sold at
all anywhere at this point other than Italy. UM I
think might be kind of like the last push. I
think we're just being Italian only brand. So Ben do
you think we're we're doing justice to this brand here?
Do you think we're we're getting something not there? Because
I I know, we try to try to incorporate as
(33:03):
much information as we can and it's tough with when
we do like a full brand history. Yeah, we got
we got some of it. Um, there's so much to cover.
We could just do one entirely on Lancy as racing history,
which we didn't go into too much depth on. I'm
glad that we were able to look at some of
Brian's recommendations and there there's some really cool stuff in there,
(33:26):
especially if you're a fan of just just the mechanical
aspect of the engines themselves. You know, production hasn't ever
been huge. It hasn't been like a really massive producer
of vehicles, and and there's a reason behind that, and
that's probably why you know, the the viability of of
Lancia here in the United States was was sort of low.
(33:46):
I mean that you know, it wasn't really a car
that was one that was continually exported to the United
States from that point on. From what I say two
on um one reason and this is just one of
many reasons. But and I don't know if this is
really a problem, I mean, it's sort of a problem,
but it but it's uh, it's a it's a decent
problem to have. And here here's what I mean. Um,
(34:08):
the cars don't have a lot of commonality between the
different models, so it means that the cost of production
increases extensively. And the problem is that the demand uh
isn't quite as high as as you know, they would
like it to be, so they're not able to uh
make as much money as they would would need to
in order to continue with that type of production. Yeah,
(34:29):
think about it, because there throughout its history it's had
sporty hatchbacks like the Delta, It's had the THEMA Sedan,
and then you know, in the nineties they had the
Y Compact and those are those are cars for very
different markets. And the thing about this brand is that,
you know, because they were complex, because they have you know,
a fixation on quality, because they have this uh this
(34:51):
need to be um you know, uh precision, I guess,
and in a lot of ways, um, they're using older
equipment you know to to do this, or were at
the time, and um, it just led to again very
expensive vehicles and essentially all these had to be handbuilt,
and they just couldn't continue with that, you know, to
to produce cars at at the scale or the scope
(35:13):
of of production that they needed to be at in
order to be considered, you know, a big player in
the world marketplace, right and predictably, of course, fans of
Lancia have reacted to this with outrage. You know you
can you can just check out there's like a Twitter
account called Occupy Lancia that sends Fiat messages. Yeah, yeah,
(35:35):
it's uh And that was in and on a bitter
sweet note. In the same year this announcement occurred. A
nineteen Lancia Lambda one the mild Meagli, a classic car
race in Italy beat in Alpha Romeo. Yeah, it's cool,
but it's kind of swan song. Since you mentioned now
(35:56):
for Mayo, I'm bringing this up anyway because earlier, earlier
we talked about this and I said, shoot, I can't
bring this up in this episode, but here it is now.
He had to say Alpha, didn't you alight? So the
Alpha Romeo, that brand is returning to the United States,
and that's with the Alfa Romeo for c and it's
gonna be sold at Alpha Romeo dealerships across the United
(36:16):
States up eighty two dealerships as far as I know
right now in thirty three states. For now, that's all
they're gonna be selling, because I checked out the site
to look, you know, at where it's available. There's one
here in Georgia. Uh. Some states have several dealerships, you know.
I guess it's based on demand. But I'm excited about
that one. And since you mentioned it, Ben, I figured
i'd just throw that in there. But but Brian, honestly,
(36:37):
there's there's a lot more to cover, as you know. UM,
I hope our listeners maybe use the opportunity to dig
into some of this history and look up some of
the automotive first of Lancia and and really investigate some
of the engineering breakthroughs in UH. UM, just dramatic advancements
that Lancia made in the automotive industry. And they really
were for a long long time a big player in
(36:57):
UH in pushing things forward for all automobiles. Really, right, Yeah,
it's it was not lightly that the guys at Top
Gears said Lancia had more great models than any other
car company. I said that in two thousand or nine.
And the thing is, I mean, for for a brand
that's relatively unknown here in the United States, I mean,
a lot of the U S listeners will stay lanceages.
(37:19):
I think I saw one of those for sale, um,
you know, in the in the back of Hemmings magazine
at one point, you know, years and years ago, I
was just not that well known here. And that the
reason is because you know, we only officially had them
here for about seven years and uh and beyond that,
you know then then it's really kind of a one
here one there. Um. I was supposed that some gray
market cars are making their way here to the United
(37:41):
States at this point, or at least in America. UM.
But again and unofficially, some of those nineteen fifties and
nineteen sixties, those uh, you know, very small um import
imported vehicles, you know, the small importation numbers, uh that
came across during those decades. They might be out there somewhere,
but they're likely show cars or something, right um. And
(38:01):
you know you know how this goes. I mean with
the world classic cars, I mean they'll show up everywhere.
So you're gonna find them at concourse events, and you're
gonna find them at auto shows, but to see one
on the road, it's pretty rare here in the US.
And I want to add one more thing that didn't
make it into the episode one, and this is just
(38:23):
a very small thing, but I thought it was super cool.
Did you know that Lancia built a limousine for the
president of Italy? I did not know that. What an
interesting choice. Huh, yeah, they it was in nineteen fifty seven.
They made a limo model of the Lancia Florida, and
they made a couple of other limousines. So are they
(38:44):
They themselves made a couple other limousines eight nine. I
just think I think that stuff is pretty cool. To
the idea of building a car for the president, I guess.
I mean, when you consider that a lot of the
cars were handbuilt anyways, or all the car were handbuilt, Um,
it's it makes sense that they would do some of
these custom one off vehicles as well. Why not? Yeah?
(39:06):
Why not? So Scott, at this time, I think we're
going to have to, uh, we're gonna have to head
on out hit the dusty trail. But uh, you know,
there's a lot of stuff we didn't get to with
Lancy as always, right, I mean, there's there's so much here,
and again, if we were to really dig into some
of the first I bet there's other smaller first that
we could find that we just haven't been able to hit.
(39:28):
But we I think we got the most of the
big ones and we did address I think everything in
Brand's email, So I'd say on this one, job well done,
but but maybe incomplete. Yeah, we've got it's a work
in progress of Brian. Thank you for your fantastic email
because this was This was really cool and it is
something that more people in the States should know about
(39:49):
if they don't know about it already. Even to us,
it was an eye opener. Yeah. Yeah, and you can
you can hear you can hear more about group B
rally cars in our sear reads that we released on
that earlier where we mentioned Lancia a few times. Definitely, Yeah,
and uh, it was I'll say it's one of our
one of our better shows. It's pretty cool. I like
(40:10):
that one a lot. And you know, of course that
led to watching a lot of Groupie rally competition and
listening to those cars. But I don't know if there's
a better sounding race car out there now that's up
for debate. I mean, because there's a lot and I
am a big fan of indie car founds, and you
know I have wanted it first, but but man to
hear those those groupie rally cars tearing through the forest
(40:31):
somewhere incredible. Yes, you check it out. Let us know
what you think. You can find that, along with every
other podcast we have ever done, at our website, car
Stuff Show dot com. You can hit Scott and I
up on Facebook and Twitter, where we're your car stuff
hs w uh. We'd love to hear your suggestions. If
you want to take a page from Brian's book and
let us know what we should cover in the future,
(40:52):
you can tell us on Facebook, you can tell us
on Twitter, or you can send us an email directly.
We are car stuff our stuff works dot com. Beware
on this and thousands of other topics is at houstupports
dot com. Let us know what you think. Send an
email to podcast at how stup works dot com. M
CarStuff News
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