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.
Thinking to brighten the venerable firm’s established image for prestige passenger cars, Gianni plunged into motorsport at the highest, costliest level.
How did he do? Well, he managed to create wonderful and winning racecars. But he lost the company. We leave it to you to judge which factor weighs more.
Gianni was the son of Vincenzo, a burly, flamboyantly mustachioed driver of the hulking FIAT racers of the early 20th century. Among other things of note, in 1906 he scored a 2nd place in America’s Vanderbilt Cup race near New York.
But that year Vincenzo also set up his own auto-making venture in Turin, and though he did continue driving a while longer, racing was never a big part of his business plan. Lancia focused rather on technical advancement, earning international renown by introducing V-type engines and integral body-chassis construction, and his long line of touring cars were highly regarded for their fine driving qualities. Enthusiastic Lancia clients would occasionally enter speed contests, but the initiative was theirs, not the factory’s.
This was the complexion of the company young Gianni inherited upon Vincenzo’s sudden death in 1937. Like his Dad, the lad liked racing; unlike father, the son believed racing would boost the family brand. War put his ambitions on hold, but once the air cleared, Gianni brought in one of the legendary figures in Italian racing car design.
Vittorio Jano had been practically a contemporary of Vincenzo Lancia and was a fellow FIAT alumnus, having started as an engineering assistant there in 1911. In 1923, Jano joined Alfa Romeo, where over the next 15 years he was responsible for some of the most successful and elegant Grand Prix cars ever designed.
For Lancia, Jano’s first project was a new family of street cars named Aurelia, which debuted in 1950 and boasted a V-6 engine in front, a transaxle in the rear and all-round independent suspension. A year later came a fastback GT model, the B20, that was as graceful in appearance as it felt on the road. Inevitably—this was Italy, after all—people took their Aurelias racing, and in 1951, Lancia B20 coupes finished 2nd overall in the Mille Miglia and won the 2-liter class at Le Mans.
No holding Gianni Lancia back now! Production B20 engines grew as large as 2.5-liters, and the sweet little GT continued to enjoy success in races and rallies. Meanwhile, Lancia set up a factory race team and put Jano to work on a pure competition model. Called the D20, it retained the coupe body style, but had an all-new, 3.0-liter, aluminum-block V-6 with four overhead cams installed in a purpose-built tubular chassis. Of course, it also had the marque’s signature rear-mounted gearbox. The D20 raced in 1953 in the Mille Miglia, where Felice Bonetto finished 3rd overall, but at Le Mans, all three Lancia coupes retired.
Keeping at it, later that summer the factory rolled out not one, but two improved D-models with open bodywork. First came the D23, a chunky-looking roadster distinguished by a rather elephantine proboscis drawing carburetor air in from the very nose. Running nonchampionship events at Monza and Lisbon, Bonetto managed to place 2nd and 1st, respectively.
Those were minor races, but looming in November 1953 was a major one—Mexico’s epic, 1,900-plus-mile Carrera Panamericana. For it, Lancia further refined the D-design into what would become the definitive model, the 3.3-liter D24.
It promptly won, placing 1st in the masterful hands of Juan Fangio and 2nd (PieroTaruffi) with a D23 coming home 3rd (Eugenio Castellotti). Unfortunately, the victory was marred, as they used to say, by Bonetto’s death when he hit a house.
Lancia opened the 1954 season by bringing the Mexico-winning car to the World Motorsports Show in New York (where it shared the Big City limelight with Mercedes’ new 300 SL production coupe making its world debut), and then to Sebring for the 12-Hour. With four D24s entered, plus a spare, Lancia’s was by far the strongest team.
But its cars, survivors of Mexico, weren’t strong enough for the rough old Florida airport circuit. Only one D24 lasted, finishing a distant 2nd. Famously, the last to retire his Lancia was Taruffi, who was leading by miles when he suffered engine failure. Then the Italian veteran had to suffer some more—pushing his dead car and watching Stirling Moss dance by in his lightweight little 1.5-liter OSCA to snatch the win.
Things came right two months later, when Grand Prix champion Alberto Ascari stepped into a D24 for the Mille Miglia. He won. Lancia had beaten Ferrari, Maserati, OSCA, Alfa, Porsche, Jaguar, Aston Martin…so many great names.
Then Taruffi drove a D24 to victory in the Targa Florio!
Gianni Lancia now could not resist the lure of Formula One, so he had Jano draw up a completely new, V-8-powered single-seater. It was finally ready to race for the last Grand Prix of the 1954 season.
This was the same year the marvelously complex Mercedes-Benz W196 appeared, but Lancia’s D50 was as interesting in its own right. Notably compact, light and tidy, it featured outrigger fuel tanks to keep weight centered. Its 2.5-liter V-8—the first such in F1—was a stressed element of the multitube chassis. On its debut in Barcelona, Ascari qualified fastest and was running away until clutch trouble stopped him.
Lancia’s exciting D50 went on to win two nonchampionship events in early 1955, and was at the point of taking the lead in the Monaco GP when Ascari somehow drove it into the harbor. He got out OK, but just days later, the great champion was killed while testing a Ferrari sports car.
This tragedy struck just as Lancia had gone to its knees financially. In his passion for racing, Gianni overlooked Enzo Ferrari’s example of also producing high-performance, high-priced road cars to dangle before wealthy enthusiasts. The ax fell in July 1955, when Gianni and his mother sold out to a cement mogul named Pesenti. The Lancia F1 cars were handed over to Ferrari. Jano followed them.
The good news was, the brilliant D50 design received further development, and as a “Lancia-Ferrari,” it finally took Fangio to the 1956 world driving championship—just 50 years after Vincenzo founded his firm.
So in the end, in a way, Gianni Lancia’s imprudent bid to make racing history did succeed.
And the sports racers? Although Lancia focused on F1 in 1954, some work did continue on the sports cars, resulting in a D25 with a 3.8 engine and swoopier bodywork. This model only raced late that year and to little effect. Then all the two-seaters were shoved into a corner. Upon sale of the company a very few complete D23 and D24 cars went into collections, but most were scrapped.
Happily, six V6 engines and a few other components were spared, and several decades later a group of Lancia lovers used these parts, factory drawings and open access to a surviving original to painstakingly recreate some “new” D24s.
One of these is now owned by American vintage racer Charlie Nearburg. He loves it.
“I’m overwhelmed by the technology,” he says. “It’s got gorgeous details. Massive inboard brakes. The engine is set way back. It’s got a transaxle, of course, and the gas tank is over it, not behind. There’s a lot of mass-centralization.
“It’s an incredibly well-balanced car. It turns in well, and there’s enough power to buzz those skinny rear wheels, so you can balance it on the throttle. Good brakes, though you need to warm ’em up for a lap—as I so amply demonstrated at Monterey last year. It’s a very honest car, it tells you what it wants to do. You just gotta listen.
“Remember, it was built as an over-the-road racer, so it’s heavier than a circuit car would be. At Phil Reilly’s we weighed it, and I think it was about 2,700-lb, but it was balanced almost exactly 50-50. The steering might be a little heavy in hairpins, except the tires are so narrow—it feels like it could handle tires twice the size.
“It’s in its element on the open road, like on the Colorado Grand. You can see its heritage in long-distance racing. It doesn’t float at high speed, though the steering does get a little light.
“My engine is no. 003, which is the one Taruffi and Castellotti usually drove. It was 2nd in the Carrera. The power is nice and flat from 2,500 to 5,500. I don’t like to take it over 6,000—it will go 6,500, but it feels like you’re flogging it, just making noise.
“The sound…Ahhh! Fantastic! I have a set of open megaphones, and we put ’em on one day in Colorado. Steve Earle said he could hear it 50 miles away. An ear-splitting screech. Beautiful, but deafening. Normally, I run it with mufflers hidden inside the pipes.
“It’s very comfortable to drive and there’s no wind buffeting, even though I’m wedged in like I am in most Italian cars. And my wife is willing to ride along sometimes, which is saying something.”
As you can read elsewhere in this issue, Lancia’s great name lives on today, even in motor sport. But it is only thanks to dedicated enthusiasts like Charles Nearburg that the voice of the greatest Lancias is still heard, loud and clear.
For more on the famous F1 Lancia, see “Chariot of the Gods,” Ed McDonough’s track test of a recreated D50 in our September 2002 issue.
