On the shores of Carmel Bay in California this weekend, an amazing collection of Lancias honoured the marque’s century-long commitment to elegance in design, at the 58th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

On the shores of Carmel Bay in California this weekend, an amazing collection of Lancias honoured the marque’s century-long commitment to elegance in design, at the 58th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Spanning from an example of the first Lancia model ever built to Bertone’s outrageous Stratos prototype, onlookers were left in no doubt about the Turinese marque’s historical and ongoing influence on automotive design.

Sixteen Lancias in total made the trip to Monterey, split across three classes. Five were entered in the ‘Lancia Prewar’ class and ten in ‘Lancia Postwar’, with Steve and Jeanne Katzman’s B24 Aurelia Spider an entrant in the ‘Postwar Preservation through 1967’ class. This latter car, amazingly original down to its interior and mechanicals, collected second place in class, behind Chris LaPorte’s 1957 Ferrari 410 Super America Series II Pinin Farina Coupe.

As one of the featured marques for this year’s concours, along with Lamborghini and a celebration of General Motors’ centenary, a lineup of rare Lancias occupied pride of place in one of the automotive world’s most exclusive settings. Leading the display was Corrado Lopresto’s 1908 12hp Alpha Miller Brothers Tourer, which placed third in the prewar Lancia class. First unveiled a century ago at the 1908 Turin Show, the 12hp (later renamed ‘Alfa’ and now called the ‘Alpha’ to fit in with Lancia’s decision to adopt Greek nomenclature for his cars) were available as straight chassis to be bodied in a variety of styles. Boasting an inline four-cylinder engine of 2.4 litres, these initial Lancias were famed for their lightness and efficient engineering.

Vittorio Serventi’s 1915 Theta Spider marked a rare sight. Often overlooked, the Theta replaced the smaller Epsilon in 1913 and was a great success for Lancia, selling in considerable numbers for over five years. Amongst its technical innovations, it included a new electrical lighting system, no starting handle (for the first time on a European car), and the availability of steel wheels. The unusual Spider coachwork on this example was one of several styles.

The Lambda remains perhaps Lancia’s most remarkable technical achievement, bringing together innovations in every area of engineering into an impressively forward-looking car. Pebble Beach featured a superb example of this model, a 1st Series Torpedo from 1923, entered by Gigi Baulino. Pioneering as it did the concept of a unitary body, the Lambda was not embraced by the coachbuilding profession as previous Lancias had been, in part because closed coachwork was difficult to mate with the chassis, and the Torpedo body style remained the only design available for quite some time. This car placed second in class.

Coachbuilt Lambdas became more popular with the advent of the 7th and 8th Series chassis designs, and in Britain, bodies were available from James Young, Gurney Nutting, Corsica and the Albany Coachwork Company. The latter produced this highly distinctive and striking design, the only surviving example of three built. Owned by Gary Byrd and restored in Australia, this car was shown at the London Motor Show in 1927. The streamlined aero-style bodywork is complimented by an altimeter, an airspeed indicator and a spotlight on the roof, leading the Curtis Automobile Company of London (the then-concessionaires for Lancia in the UK) to describe it as “The Airliner on Land.”

The winner of the prewar class was Guido Lamperti’s stunning 1933 Astura Castagna Torpedo. One of the most luxurious cars built in Italy during the 1930s, the Astura provided a base for many of the most elegant designs by Italian coachbuilders, with Carrozzeria Castagna of Milan building this body on a third series chassis. The car is powered by Lancia’s 2.9-litre, narrow-angle V8, with the single cylinder head design patented by the earlier Dilambda.

In the postwar class, a pair of Lancia concepts created by Enrico Nardi and known as the ‘Blue Rays’ provided a rare sight.  With the 1990 edition of this event the first time the cars had been displayed together in public, seeing them together once again on the lawns of the golf course rekindled memories for many who saw them 18 years ago. Completed in September 1955, the first Blue Ray was built around a Nardi-constructed tubular steel Pan American road-racing chassis with all-alloy bodywork (excluding the roof frame), and powered by a Nardi-modified Aurelia B20 2.5 V6. With modifications including Nardi cams, pistons, manifolds, a cast alloy air scoop and dual twin-choke Weber 40DCZS carbs, the engine is rated at 190bhp, whilst the transaxle gearbox is operated by a floor-mounted Nardi gearchange.  The roof, a feature of the design, is manufactured of blue Perspex (as are the side windows and rear window) and is equipped with a grilled air scoop and internal direction vents. Initially debuting at the Turin Motor Show, the car subsequently made appearances at the Paris and New York shows. 

Its companion, Blue Ray No. 2, was created three years afterwards, again debuting at the Turin Motor Show in 1958.  It is based on an extensively modified B24 Spider chassis, but as with the first Blue Ray, design is by Michelotti and construction, in steel, by Vignale.  Unlike the first Blue Ray, the Perspex roof slides back to provide ventilation, but the mechanicals are likewise taken from a B20, with Nardi modifications to produce around 140bhp.  As with its twin, the wire wheels were specially commissioned from Borrani; they were later offered as a special option on production Spiders.

The Aurelia was an immensely significant model for Lancia, and was well represented at Pebble Beach. In addition to the Katzmans’ green Spider and a similar restored example from The Netherlands entered by Ton and Maya Meijer, Johnny Claes’ Liege-Rome-Liege-winning B20 was displayed, owned by Umberto Fraccaro Genovese. A Squadra Corse car, this car is painted in Lancia’s factory colours, which also replicate the ivory and blue colours of the city of Turin, and has been restored to its original specifications. In its preparation for competition, the car differs surprisingly little from a roadgoing B20; the engine output is raised only to 139bhp.

Another Aurelia, but rather different in specification, was that of Oscar Davis, whose 1952 B53 Giardinetta collected first prize in the postwar category. A ‘woody’ wagon by Viotti, this B53 is one of just two surviving examples, from a total production run of 47. Found complete, albeit neglected, in a field in Sardinia, a full restoration was carried out in Italy.

The Aurelia was succeeded as Lancia’s flagship by the Flaminia, and perhaps the ultimate example of the breed was that wrought by Zagato, a longtime exponent of Lancia chassis. Built on a shortened wheelbase (shared with the Touring-bodied models), the Flaminia Zagato Sport marked one of Zagato’s most coherent designs, with many of the coachbuilder’s classic design motifs, including the famous ‘double-bubble’ roof combining to create a truly elegant yet sporty piece of automotive design. The car at Pebble Beach was an early example from 1959, entered by Bruce D. Milner of Los Angeles, and secured third in class.

A special Zagato-bodied Lancia was also on display, one of a number of coachbuilt Appias.  This aluminium-bodied GT Sport model from 1961, one of 200, was powered by the narrow-angle 1.1 V4 engine, and was first shown by Gerald Freck at the Pebble Beach Concours in 1963, winning first in class. As a collector, Freck was meticulous about originality, down to keeping the original tyres, and the car remains in highly original condition.

Finally, on the competition front, three exceptional racing cars from the Lancia stable completed the marque’s lineup. The eldest of these was a 1946 Aprilia Pagani Riva Barchetta Corsa. With the prewar Aprilia’s reputation as a technically-advanced berlina which could out handle and outperform many sportscars of the day, it was a natural progression after the war ended that many would be bodied or rebodied by leading coachbuilders such as Pinin Farina, Touring and Zagato. This one-off barchetta corsa was built by the Italian Riva company on a prewar Aprilia sedan chassis. The engine was modified by Milanese tuner Luigi Pagani, who installed a special aluminium cylinder head and dual Weber carburettors, and the car was raced regularly by its owner, Luigi Beretta, throughout the early postwar years. Not just a museum piece, it remains in action today, having recently been driven by its new owner, Charles Schoendorf of Connecticut, in the Colorado Grand and Mille Miglia.

The ultimately ill-fated Lancia sportscar program would place immense strain on the company’s finances, but equally, it is responsible for some of the most beautiful competition machines to emerge from Italy, and none more so than the D24, which won such prestigious events as the Mille Miglia, Carrera Panamericana and Targa Florio. The example shown at Pebble Beach, which belongs to the Torrota Collection in Switzerland, is chassis number 0005, and won the 1954 Targa Florio driven by Piero Taruffi, and the Oporto Grand Prix a month later in the hands of Luigi Villoresi. After the sportscar program was disbanded, Gianni Lancia gave the car to President Peron of Argentina, to race in the national team colours. Some years later it was returned to Italy, where it was restored for the racing driver and collector Count Vittorio Zanon.

Lastly, although not strictly a competition car, the most recent Lancia on display spawned one of the most influential and dramatic rally cars of all time. This was Chris Hrabalek’s Stratos prototype, the same car which won its class at Villa d’Este earlier in the year. Debuting at the 1971 Turin Show a year after the Bertone Zero styling concept, the Stratos heralded a new breed of sportscar, as well as a revolution in rallying. Different in many ways to the final production version, the Stratos prototype is a stunning declaration of aesthetic confidence and a fitting conclusion to the decades worth of bold, innovative and elegant design exemplified in Lancia’s philosophy.

by Shant Fabricatorian