LanciaInfo Blog

There will be a book party to celebrate release of Geoff’s new book, Lancia and De Virgilio, At the Center. It includes 1950s Italian auto engineering, corporate angst, and family drama. Its a car book that begins with a wedding….

The party is on September 23, at the Ravenswood Event Center in Chicago. Also on display will be the Hayes Collection of exotic sports cars along with some notable Lancia cars. At 7 PM, there will be a brief presentation.

Event: Book Party from 6-8 PM, presentation at 7PM.

Location: Ravenswood Event Center, 4025 N. Ravenswood, Chicago (note: this is a few doors north of 4011 N. Ravenswood)

There is a modest entry fee of $10 to pay for setup, wine and cheese.
Tickets can be gotten in advance at: book release party, or cash at the door.

Sometimes people do silly things. Sometimes they make us think.

Neal Van Ess has had many Italian cars, and still owns a Fulvia he got from me back c. 1980. He has a couple of Appias, and one not in good shape. He decided to make it into a project car, a fantasy-mobile. He shared his thoughts a couple of years ago, and frankly I was quite unsure. This year, he brought the finished project to Elkhart Lake, and while unusual, a number of Lancia fans there said they were surprised, and it was remarkable and well done.

Most Lancias were underpowered. We know that, and we have good reasons for supporting the marque regardless. But what if that wasn’t the case?

Neal did a deluxe interior for the car and upgraded its motor to a 6 cylinder Chevy Camaro engine (its a very tight fit). He upgraded the transmission and differential, modified the rear suspension, added some bigger wheels, and voila, a hot Appia. Never thought you’d hear those words? This one has around 300hp, and its loads cheaper than a B20, faster than blazes and unusual.

I’m still a bit unsure what to make of it all, but gee, life at the cutting edge is challenging. Of course, there are many dynamic issues still to be sorted out, such as cooling, braking, front suspension, etc., but he’s well on his way!

When Tony Nicosia mentioned this rare 1955 race footage that he had gotten from Steve Katzman, his enthusiasm was hard to understand. Old race footage? But when you see a B24 Spider dicing with a Gullwing, Jaguar Xk’s spinning, MGs rolling over and other machinery running at full tilt down this most bouncy roadway, it is clear here is footage that captures the spirit of road racing back then.

Enjoy. Some screen shots below…

ORDERING THE BOOK
The book is currently available at David Bull Publishing.

European orders are best served by Chaters in the UK (good stock, good price and shipping rates), and also Gilena in Italy and Amazon.

DESCRIPTION
Lancia and De Virgilio is a history of the Lancia company, family, and the life and work of Francesco De Virgilio, one of their leading engineers. This richly illustrated history of postwar Italy includes unpublished writings, period images, and drawings explaining Lancia’s groundbreaking Aurelia, other cars, and their 1950s racing effort. Seven years in making, it includes new information from the extensive De Virgilio archive and the Lancia family.

The book is both a personal and company biography, spanning from the beginning of De Virgilio’s career at Lancia in 1939 to his retirement in 1975, and includes consulting for Alfa Romeo in the 1980s. The personal and social story of life in post-war Italy is seen through both the De Virgilio and Lancia families, with many unique historic pictures, technical drawings and diagrams, and is a visually strong presentation.

The book is priced at $99.95, 65£, and 80€. sample pages

Sophia Loren in the new Appia, 1953 Turin show

This is a selection of great footage on Lancia, done from its beginning to later years. Too short but full of remarkable images and wonderful footage in this video, it is available on Youtube in 7 parts. There are the usual oddities, as the video begins with opera, setting the stage for Lancia beauty. So too, Pininfarina’s Flaminia discussion is followed by footage of the Apollo moon launch! There are wonderful race images, and rally shots of the Fulvia charging through the muck. Parts 3 and 4 are noteworthy.

Thanks to Marcello Minerbi for introducing me to this years ago, and to Forum Viva-Lancia (Italia) for posting links.

Lancia Story – part 1
Lancia Story – part 2
Lancia Story – part 3
Lancia Story – part 4
Lancia Story – part 5
Lancia Story – part 6
Lancia Story – part 7

Interest in original colors continues. Lancia put out a color booklet for the Fulvia and Flavia, reproduced below. I believe it is from c. 1970, so the Sport colors are for the s.2 version. Will confirm when I find the darn thing….

Of more interest to the passionate Lancista is, of course, the fur interior, shown here for the very first time. Never seen one on a car, but there is always hope of spotting an unrestored original version.

Located in Villafranca, near Verona, it was founded by a man who made his fortune in recycled paper. They have an extraordinary Lancia, the Mille Miglia Astura. Check out this video from their site – its rather unusual, unlike any other car video I’ve ever seen.

and this link to more images, although never enough!

http://www.museonicolis.com/en/doc-s-32-230-1-lancia_astura_mille_miglia.aspx

read the article: 1928 American Machinist plant organization

There has been a lot of discussion about innovation and how to get it into design and into actual products. Serious innovation is not something that is dropped into the mix – rather, it is built up at all stages of design and production. For the design part, it requires a culture within which it can flourish and grow, even one that can permit unusual and improbable ideas to have a chance at life. For most of the last 25 years there has been a great deal of emphasis on out-sourcing, and loading suppliers and subcontractors with the complexities of their specialized products; the main manufacturer is more of an assembler than a maker.

Recent changes in software and controls have revised much of this thinking: there is now greater reliance on producing “just in time” so as to reduce costs of inventory and storing supplies; so too, small orders are more feasible, and with greater inventory and production control a large number of variations, previously thought impossible to manage, can be provided. One other aspect is changing as well, with a recurring interest in centralized control of design and manufacturing. This has been promoted by firms such as Apple and other vertically integrated companies. This is not a wholesale return to the days of old, where production was completely centralized under one roof; although conceptually attractive, the reality is that a return to River Rouge is unlikely.

A successful strategy today is likely a combination of all techniques (outsourcing, just in time, inventory control and variations, and centralized information). As we increase our understanding of all the particulars of this puzzle, it is worth looking into one aspect of this puzzle, that of centralized control of production. Many of us are familiar with Ford-ism, also known as Taylorism, after Charles Taylor who invented this technique of scientifically measuring efficiency in work tasks and production. It was the lifeblood of Henry Ford and his company, but it is still predominantly an American model. Other examples also exist and can provide insight into control and excellence in manufacturing. Lancia was one such example, and represents a particular approach possible in a medium-sized manufacturing company mastering the industrial process.

In the height of Lancia’s success with the Lambda in the 1920s, their manufacturing processes caught the attention of the international press. In 1928-29, J.A. Lucas wrote a series of articles for the American Machinist detailing Lancia’s work processes; these have been assembled and reprinted at “Lancia Machining” on www.lanciainfo.com. Here is one of the first articles, on the Lancia plant itself and how it was organized. Its rather in-depth and for those who have managed production, points out a number of ways in which quality and innovation were protected early on at Lancia in the midst of large scale production. The first of his articles in 1928 is provided here for reading.

The above photo was found by Carter Hendricks in Rasmussen’s book, “The Survivors: European Sports Cars of the Fifties” from 1978, not looked at in many years. Little is known of these cars – and this image rpovides a comparison between the two cars. Supposedly three Zagatos were made and none remain. There are rumblings that one might surface in Italy: John deBoer said he saw one in a shop in Italy on an Alfa bb, and that it might come to the light of day in a few years; another friend said he saw one deep in a big collection in central Italy. As they look similar to other Zagato cars of that time, one never knows. Perhaps.
Anyone up for a rebody of their B20?

In discussion with Carter Hendricks of St. Louis, he recalled a conversation a few years ago with a Lancia mechanic who had been assigned travel duty in the 1960s to take care of customer’s cars in the US.
Carter asked him about the leaking front suspension (the sliding pillar) and the response was that they didn’t leak, they seeped. Carter read this as continued stubborness on the part of an old world Lancista.
Having worked for several years with the Torinese on Italian documents, a different view was offered; that is, Italian is a very precise language, and the little differences mean a lot. “Leaking” would be something designed to be sealed that failed. “Seeping” would be something designed to allow some oil to pass as part of the design.
My take on the choice of words was that the man was being accurate. What we saw as a leak was not; it was designed to seep slight amounts of oil as the factory knew that a perfect seal for the sliding pillar was not possible. Its all in the language.