Lancia in World Endurance Championship...... if only

[nthomas1]

No Easter eggs for me this year, so spending a leisurely Easter Sunday catching up with some admin stuff and browsing through some folders of my old motor racing photographs.  I just paid the balance of the cost for my 2016 Le Mans trip and was idly day-dreaming how great it would have been had Lancia still been participating in endurance racing. Sadly that will never happen.  However, it would be great to see an Italian team in the LMP1 category up against the Audis, Porsches and Toyotas.  Marchionne  has hinted at F1 for Alfa Romeo, but WEC, with its greater technical diversity and road-car relevance would be a much better place to see the Italian flag flying again.  Here's a couple of my pictures of Lancia Group C cars that triggered this train of thought.  First is an LC1 from 1982 BOAC 1000km event, second is an LC2 from the 1983 running of the same event.  The third is an LC2 in the pits at Donington at the 2012 Historic Festival.  Happy Easter to all Lancisti!!

[nthomas1]

Here are second and third pictures:

[Caracad]

Great pics Norm,
As you say wouldn't it be great if Lancia were still in motor racing. Oh and while they were at it, building some nice road cars as well. Not sure either of those things will happen.

Was following a BMW I3 the other day and thought Lancia could be making something like that. Innovative and super modern. It's even got the pillerless body side.  If it was a Lancia, it would of course be more beautiful.

[nthomas1]

Agree entirely Mark.  Though not very fashionable to say so, I actually think there is still is a very good niche opportunity for Lancia.   If you look at what Toyota did with Lexus, what Honda did with Accura and what Nissan did with Infiniti, there's still clearly a place for premium vehicles.  Even Ford are following this strategy to an extent with the Vignale nameplate, and Citroen with the DS brand.  The concept of a dual franchise for dealers with a volume product and a high-end one is well proven.  For Fiat, I would suggest that Alfa Romeo be the outright sporting brand and Fiat and Lancia become the volume/exclusive duo.  That would allow Lancia to build technically innovative stylish products that sit above the more mundane, though well engineered, Fiat product line. This would play so well to Lancia's historic strengths.  I spent 12 years in Detroit (working as an executive at Ford) and watched the emergence of all of these "premium" brands - all the time wishing that Fiat would do something similar with Lancia.  I haven't (quite) given up hope yet!!

[frankxhv773t]

I agree absolutely. It is such an obvious route to go down. I think they got confused by making Alfa an executive as well as sporting brand which left Lancia with nowhere to go. Unfortunately I can't see current corporate management at Fiat having the sense to do this and they may now have fatally undermined the Lancia brand with their Chrysler badge engineering.