There’s probably two things about the FIAT group I’ll never understand. And it’s both about Lancia’s that clearly should have made it to production. This rant is about one of those two: the lovely 2003 Lancia Fulvia Coupé Concept. The other one is... For another time. When I find a 1/43 of it. Or Philipilihp makes me a 1/64 of that one.
With this Fulvia Coupé Concept Lancia tried to revive that epic little car of the ‘60’s I wrote about before. And I think Lancia executed it perfectly. So I was quite disappointed when I heard this one wouldn’t make it to production. And I actually knew from that moment Lancia was dead. To me that is.
Because this was the last one I would have bought myself. After this there was no true car in the spirit of Vincenzo. Although the Fulvia Coupe Concept relied heavily of another FIAT as well, it was a true two-seater and had a real retro-designed dashboard:
Alright, those gauges clearly are taken from a Barchetta but it’s definitely not something just taken of a shelf from the FIAT Ricambi Originale dipartimento.
Lancia took the underpinnings of a FIAT Punto of the second generation. Which probably was the problem to begin with as this second gen was merely a redesign of the Punto introduced in 1993. Not quite on par when it comes to High Fidelity if a car needs to be on the market for the next couple of years.
Due to using lots of lightweight materials (both bodypanels and engine were aluminium) Lancia was able to keep it’s curbweight pretty low: 990 kgs. Using a default FIAT 1.8 from, amongst others, the FIAT Barchetta putting out 140hp it was capable of acceleration from 0-100 km/h (0-60 mph) within 9 seconds and a topspeed of 213 km/h.
The model itself has quite the taste of Spaghetti to me as I acquired it at the Automusee dell’Automobili in Torino, Italy. It’s a Norev 1/43 and I’m quite fond with it. Not sure if it’s accurate as I’ve got really not much to compare it with but it certainly looks like the real deal. That badge on it’s nose says it all: Norev really tried to make something of it!
So instead of this one Lancia came up, for instance, with the new Lancia Thema. A car which is nothing more than a Chrysler 300 with another badge. Which, isn’t quite succesful. Or a Lancia Voyager. For which they didn’t even bother to come up with a name in the style of Lancia (based on the Greek alphabet). Did I mention already Lancia is dead to me?
So there’s not really much more to say. I can go on for hours about this wasted golden opportunity. But I won’t.
In 2014 FIAT announced there would be no Lancia but the Ypsilon anymore. Lancia’s piani aziendali (future plans) consist of no new models up until 2018. So maybe it’s just a clinical death.
Ciao tutti, mantenere la fede in una buona fine! I’m not sure I can anymore.