Special Feature

Let’s Hail Lancia’s Hundreth!

Pete Lyons
Gigi Villoresi pilots a Lancia D24 toward retirement at Sebring, 1954, just about the only big event the advanced sports racer failed to win during its all-too-brief career. Designed by GP veteran Vittorio Jano, it featured a 3.3 V6, a transaxle, and all-inboard brakes. Photo: Ozzie Lyons www.petelyons.com

In the boisterous opera that has been Italian auto racing, one of the grandest of performers made just the briefest of appearances. Fewer than three full race seasons, from early 1953 to mid-1955; that was all the time Gianni Lancia got to try to remake the marque his father had founded.

Pete Lyons
Pete Lyons

Thinking to brighten the venerable firm’s established image for prestige passenger cars, Gianni plunged into motorsport at the highest, costliest level.

Main Topic Hubs

Join The Community

Become A Member

 

Members only$29 / year

Keep going. This is where it gets good.

Supercars.net Membership is for people who'd rather know the spec sheet by heart than skim ten headlines. The rest of this story — and every other one like it — is a few seconds away.

  • Thousands of members-only stories

    Deep dives, driven reviews and the full archive back to 2005.

  • No ads. None.

    The whole site reads like a magazine, on every device.

  • Every car, every spec

    Twenty years of models, numbers and history in one place.

  • 30% off the shop

    Every Supercars.net shirt and piece of merch, all year.

Join Supercars.net — Keep Reading

$29 a year. Cancel anytime, no hoops.
Already a member? Sign in

BY CAR PEOPLE, NOT A NAMELESS MEDIA COMPANY. Your membership keeps a small independent team that celebrates the brands and cars that defined this industry doing this.

Join — Keep Reading $29/yr