Understanding Lancia\u00a0numbering systems is a lesson in archaeology. It takes a bit of time to wrap your arms around the complications, but\u00a0there is a method behind them. A brief review of\u00a0four different numbering systems used at Lancia from its beginnings through\u00a0the 1970s gives a sense of how the company went through different stages and reflects changes in its engineering leadership.<\/p>\n
Lancia used engine\u00a0tipo\u00a0<\/em>number from the very beginning, with their\u00a0Alfa engine of 1907 identified\u00a0as\u00a0type\u00a051. The numbers\u00a0carried \u00a0through type\u00a066 of the Dikappa of 1921. They were carried forward with the Lambda as 67, 78\u00a0and 79 for the different motors, with\u00a068 used\u00a0for the 1922 Trikappa V8. \u00a0These engine\u00a0tipo<\/em> numbers were used into the 1940s, with the last car motors being the Aprilia as tipo<\/em> 99 and the Ardea as tipo<\/em>100. The last production engine to use this numbering system was the\u00a0tipo<\/em> 102, the 3Ro motor from 1938.<\/p>\n The earliest engine tipo<\/em> numbers are strangely\u00a0the tipo <\/em>4\u00a0V12 from 1917, with drawings from 1915, followed by the tipo\u00a0<\/em>5, a V12 from 1918. One might wonder why the V12 motors of 1917-8\u00a0had\u00a0lower numbers lower than the earlier car motors. No idea.<\/p>\n Use of the engine\u00a0tipo<\/em>\u00a0numbers continued into the\u00a0late 1930s and early 1940s, to be\u00a0used on some\u00a0prototype motors which are on display in Torino:<\/p>\n The\u00a0last motor known to have used this numbering system was tipo<\/em> 111,\u00a0the 39\u00ba V8 prototype (c. 1942), identified in De Virgilio’s notes from 1943.<\/p>\n The cars themselves had a different\u00a0numbering system for their chassis, independent of the motor numbering. The Lambda was\u00a0from car type 214 to 222A (the different numbers were used for each series), the Dilambda\u00a0227. This system extended through the 1930s as well: the s.1 Aprilia was 238, the chassis 239, and the s.2 Aprilia was 438. Acccordingly, the 1945 45\u00ba V6 replacement for the Aprilia was called the 538, its number at that time coming from\u00a0the Aprilia\u00a0car. This system ended with the Ardea, with the s.1\u00a0Ardea\u00a0as\u00a0250, with\u00a0later Ardeas \u00a0as\u00a0350, 450, 550, 650, reflecting an intent to rationalize (futile, surely!).<\/p>\n In 1943, the system is changed when Jano is put in charge of all the engineering; he used a new approach, with\u00a0A for large cars, B mid sized, and C small, with D used later for the racing cars, and later worked to have\u00a010 as the berlina, 20 as the coupe, etc. Car and motor numbers now to be\u00a0the same, so the A10 car had an A10 motor, and De Virgilio’s work on the Aurelia was the\u00a0B10 motor, and later on a\u00a0C10 motor for\u00a0the Appia.\u00a0The s.2 Appia of the late 1950s was Lancia’s last car to use Jano’s numbering system.<\/p>\n In 1955, Fessia arrived and changed the numbering system again, to now start\u00a0with a three digit number, beginning with 8. The Appia s.2 (introduced in 1956) was still called the C10, but drawings from early 1957 were labelled\u00a0with both C10 and 808 numbers, a sign of the transition. The first new car with Fessia’s \u00a0numbering was the\u00a0Flaminia (813) from 1957. His numbering was extended to the Flavia (815) and Fulvia (818), and survived long after his decease in\u00a01968, to be\u00a0used for the Stratos (829) and the Delta, Thema and Dedra into the 1990s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Understanding Lancia\u00a0numbering systems is a lesson in archaeology. It takes a bit of time to wrap your arms around the complications, but\u00a0there is a method behind them. A brief review of\u00a0four different numbering systems used at Lancia from its beginnings through\u00a0the 1970s gives a sense of how the company went through different stages and reflects […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2289"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2302,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2289\/revisions\/2302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.lanciainfo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n