Exactly 100 years ago, Vincenzo Lancia’s Lambda series accelerated the motor car’s development in one revolutionary package
WORDS SIMON HUCKNALL PHOTOGRAPHY LUC LACEY
It would be difficult to conceive of a car on sale today that not just rewrote but completely shredded the rulebook for automotive design, as the Lancia Lambda did a century ago. Viewed via the prism of an already innovation-rich period in the motor industry, what Vincenzo Lancia presented at the 1922 Paris motor show becomes even more significant – especially given that it previewed much of what we take for granted when sitting behind the wheel of any modern car.
Those technologies trip off the tongue now, but going back 100 years the Lambdaʼs load-bearing unitary body, which carried its engine, suspension and other mechanicals, would have been anathema to most manufacturers wedded to traditional platform chassis. So too would its industry-first independent front suspension, which, allied to the inherently lighter and stiffer chassis, would have transformed the driving experience for 1920s motorists. Add in all-wheel braking (still in its infancy) and a compact and advanced overhead-cam V4 engine, and it was no surprise that the Lambda looked and performed like nothing else at the time. While all but its independent front end had been seen before (Lagondaʼs 1913 11.1hp was based on an all-steel riveted monocoque, and Daimler had produced a vee-formation engine as early as 1899), the Lancia successfully pioneered their marriage in one model.
Marque authority The Phoenix Green Garage regularly hosts a group of Lambda owners at its Hartley Wintney base, and weʼve joined them to see the wide variety of models produced and to sample two Eighth Series cars – a platform saloon and a Torpedo Tourer – from those gathered. Weʼre then off to the nearby Historic Motor Car Workshops to sample a Fourth Series model (see panel). Series changes were often quite subtle, but driving these particular cars will illustrate the key differences between early and late Lambdas, and capture an essence of how the model developed over nine years and through nine series. But before all of that, what was Vincenzo Lanciaʼs rationale for producing such a radical machine?
Designer Pinin Farina recounted many years later that Lancia had been inspired by the robust construction of the hulls of the ships in which heʼd sailed to
