Lancia Aurelia GT

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Lancia

Lancia Aurelia GT

1951 - 1956
Country:
Italy
Engine:
V6
Capacity:
1991cc
Power:
56 kW / 75 bhp
Transmission:
5 spd. man
Top Speed:
160 km/h
Number Built:
n/a
Collectability:
5 star
Lancia Aurelia GT
Reviewed by Unique Cars and Parts
Our Rating: 5

Introduction



Lancia and Pinin Farina didn't invent the Grand Tourismo label. But in the Aurelia GT they created a car that gave full meaning to the term with the Aurelia GT; a car which established GT as a class in its own right. On some websites around the traps it has been written that this was the first Grand Touring, Gran Turismo, car, and that is not true. The Aurelia GT was an inheritor of European styling tradition already 20 years old when the first Pinin Farina-bodied B-20 appeared at the Turin motor show in 1951.

But what this Lancia certainly did was transfer a tradition of one-off (or at best very-limited-edition) coachwork into reasonable volume production. Between 1951 and 1956, when production ceased, around 3800 examples were built - a tiny total by modern standards, but more than enough to define the Grand Touring car - and the GT label itself - as a widely accepted concept in motoring. Griff Borgeson (1918 - 1997), a motoring enthusiast and described by the Society of Automotive Engineers as one of the world�s preeminent automotive historians , noted in his writings the presence of a Gran Tourisme motor car at the 1907 Paris Salon, and said this was not the first automotive use of the term.

Voitures pour le Grand Tour



He further noted that the Grand Tour itself - touring in the grand manner with transport and trappings to match - had been part of the lifestyle of Europe's very rich since the 18th century. Nonetheless, Borgeson went on to explain how Grand Touring automobile languished until the early 1930s, and the emergence of an established road network across the Continent. Alfa Romeo showed a convertible, based on the 6C 1750, which was a Gran Turismo machine in 1930; Bugatti had models catch-lined "Voitures pour le Grand Tour"; Bentley, Stutz, Duesenberg also produced Grand Tourers, as indeed did Lancia with the Lambda, and the concept became defined.

This machine for touring in the grand manner tended to be based on a production touring chassis, possibly a chassis with existing performance character. But it would be further modified mechanically, and equipped with special coachwork, to emphasise its purpose of covering long distances fast, safely, and carrying two people, maybe four, with their luggage. Quite emphatically, Borgeson also observed that all the best-handling (Grand Touring cars) were built close to the Alps. And that is where you would have found Lancia, located in Turin - Italy's Motor City � where the Alps were barely a cold breath away.

1950 Turin Motor Show



At the Turin motor show of 1950, Lancia introduced a typically innovative new saloon, the B-10 Aurelia. While it continued Lancia's traditional sliding-pillar independent front suspension, and Lancia's equally traditional mono-constructed bodyshell, the car had as well a new system of independent rear suspension by semi-trailing arms (patented by Lancia shortly before), rear-mounted clutch/gearbox/differential, and the world's first production V6 engine. The Aurelia's 1754 cm3 engine (70 x 75 mm bore/stroke) produced a modest 41.7 kW (56 bhp) and performance from the roomy, long-wheelbase 1100 kg saloon was hardly startling, although its ride and handling were considered very good. In Lancia tradition, unclad chassis were available for specialist coachwork. Pinin Farina produced some and is said to have suggested to Lancia the possibility of selling a small production batch of special-bodied cars based on a shorter wheelbase version of the B-10.

What started as something of a gamble paid off. The Pinin Farina styled Aurelia GT released at the following Turin show, became an immediate visual and commercial success. Its chassis was virtually a short-wheelbase B-10. The toe-board and scuttle were from the saloon, but the rear suspension was some 20 cm closer to the front, for a still lanky 264 cm wheelbase. The car also used the newly-introduced 1991 cm3 engine (72 x 81.5 mm) which in GT form gave a quite respectable 56 kW (75 bhp) at the distinctly sporting engine speed, for those times, of 5000 rpm.

The 1951 Mille Miglia



The slightly lighter weight of the GT added to its sporting capabilities against the saloon. In fact the GT had actually appeared in public a few days before the motor show, when three of the new Aurelias had run in the public-roads Giro di Sicilia race, finishing first and second in their class. The seal was set on the success of the Aurelia GT in the 1951 Mille Miglia, three weeks later. Mildly tweaked by the infant Lancia competitions department to produce 67 kW (90 bhp) for this race, a team of Aurelia GTs set off in heavy rainstorms, on this preposterously dangerous race around Italy. The fastest of them - shared by Bracco and Maglioli - caused a sensation. It was less than eight minutes astern of Villoresi's works 4.1-litre Ferrari at Rome, and finally, after 1600 km, finished second to the Ferrari, some 20 minutes behind.

This race put a sporting stamp on the Aurelia GT which, in today's world of dedicated racing machinery, is hard to equate with the obvious luxury and refinement of the production model. Nonetheless, perfectly standard GTs went very well in competition for private owners, especially on longer courses where the car's sure-footedness and sheer useful handling could compensate for its weight and lack of absolute power. The factory team, meantime, had its own stable of increasingly specialised examples, with multiple carburettors, lighter panels, stripped interiors and, finally, a much lower roofline which gave their cars a decidedly businesslike appearance.

Lancia Aurelia V6 engine
The Lancia Aurelia V6 engine - light, compact and a good performer.

Original Lancia Aurelia rear end
The original rear-end of the Aurelia had a combined gearbox/final drive assembly, inboard drum brakes, lever type dampers and coil-sprung semi-trailing arms. Later series Aurelia back end
Later series Lancia Aurelia's adopted de Dion rear suspension with semi-elliptic leaf springs, Panhard rod and telescopic dampers.

Aurelia GT at Monte Carlo Rally 1954
The Aurelia GT scored well in rallies as well as in racing, winning the Monte-Carlo rally in 1954.

Bracco and Lurani



Even so, it was with a fairly normal car that Bracco and Lurani arrived at Le Mans in 1951 - one story suggests they had simply driven across to spectate! - and proceeded to win their class, ahead of the previously dominant Bristol-engined Frazer Nashes. The following year, two serious works entries doubled the result � first and second in class and, in fact, sixth and eighth outright. That year Aurelia GTs also confirmed their ability to cover long distances fast with outright victory in the Targa Florio (Bonetto), and third and fifth outright -plus class victory � in the Mille Miglia, which that year saw a desperate confrontation between Ferrari and Mercedes, one of each finishing ahead of the fastest Aurelia in a race run at new record speeds.

The works cars retained two-litre engines throughout 1952 � although superchargers were used in the Pan American race at the end of the year, yielding 112 kW (150 bhp), a top speed over 210 km/h and outright fourth place. But they were upgraded for 1953 to 2.5 litres, as were the production models. As a 2500, the Aurelia GT was not a major road-race contender even in works trim. But it continued to be a most effective rally weapon; Johnny Claes scored a virtuoso win in the race-in-all-but-name Liege-Rome-Liege rally of 1953, and the great Louis Chiron won the 1954 Monte Carlo rally.

Competition Ambition



Lancia's competition ambitions from 1953 were concentrated on their pure-racing D20 family of sports cars, and the subsequent D50 Grand Prix car, and the development of the Aurelia GT directly reflected the degree of factory racing involvement with the model. Lightest of all had been the First Series - a total production of 500 units; the Second Series, some 50 kg heavier, claimed 160 km/h top speed; the Third Series carried the 2500 engine (78 x 83.5 mm, 88 kW at 5000 rpm), was another 50 kg heavier, but was good for 185 km/h, truly an impressive package for 1953. Learned Lancia students consider the Third Series perhaps the nicest of them all, with optimum combination of handling, power and weight.

Fourth Series cars gained more than 100 kg, partly with introduction of de Dion rear suspension, while the fifth and sixth series versions (through to 1956) saw the emphasis shifted firmly to comfort with plusher trim, more sound-deadening, and as much as another 100 kg, or in effect about 30 percent more weight than the original First Series. Throughout this six series, however, the basic specification and shape of the car changed very little.

The Making of a Legend



The Lancia sliding-pillar front suspension has deservedly become a legend in its own right. Far removed from Morgan's similar system, which by comparison is incomparably more brutal, Lancia's system was subtle, elegant, and highly expensive to manufacture. Lancia made its own shock-absorber, which was an integral part of the system, and even made its own machines to make its own square-wire coil springs which were used "to get the most spring in the least space" on all models up until the B10 Aurelia. The Aurelias used round wire, and also departed from earlier Lancia practice in mounting the pillar on a single transverse beam, instead of multiple tubes. As wheel sizes decreased, the limited suspension travel (1200 mm) which this pillar system dictated ensured its eventual abandonment, and the Aurelias were the last big Lancias to use it.

The semi-trailing arm rear suspension, on the other hand, has been adopted by many other manufacturers � few of whom, for all that, have duplicated Lancia's concern for detail engineering. The conversion to de Dion (on both the saloon and GT Aurelias) followed some hairy wet-weather experiences with the racing GTs, and bears out what is still true today of the semi-trailing arm rear suspension; namely that it incorporates some undesirable rear-wheel steering characteristics. The Aurelia's de Dion was relatively unremarkable. It used, surprisingly, a pair of leaf springs for suspension, and located the de Dion tube sideways with a simple Panhard rod. Reading between lines of road tests and impressions of the period, it seems a de Dion Aurelia was less nervous, but more predictable and more stable at high speed.

The First V6 In A Normal Road Car



The rear-mounted gearbox was distinctly unorthodox for the time. The four-speed, non-synchro first box was unchanged right through until the fifth series GTs - when it was made beefier - but its advantages in weight distribution and front-seat leg room were obvious and undeniable. The V6 engine, by contrast, was hardly obvious, and to non-Lancia designers probably deniable in the extreme. At that time, no-one had ever tried to put one in a normal road car, and out-of-balance problems appeared in theory to rule the whole idea right out. However, Lancia had a fine tradition of unorthodox small Vee engines which worked very well, and some test V6s developed by designer de Virgilio were running in prototype form in the late 1940s.

When his engine finally appeared, it was a 60-degree vee (slightly wider angle than the early test engines), with all its castings in aluminium alloy, and compact not only fore-and-aft but in width as well. Taking advantage of the considerable space between each of the three wet-linered bores in each bank, de Virgilio's V6 had its pushrod-operated overhead valves arranged fore-and-aft in the domed combustion chamber, with the valve rockers pivoting on transverse shafts. It was very compact, very individual, very Lancia; it involved difficult porting and - at first - restricted breathing, but that was very Lancia too.

A Masterpiece



What was certainly tradition at Lancia was the sheer durability of the machinery. It is reflected in the high all-up weight of the cars, as much as in their reliability; lighter Aurelia GTs might have been faster, but would they have kept their formidable reliability? So this was a fine chassis, a fine collection of components, upon which Pinin Farina could build a definitive motor car. For such it surely was, a shape recognised immediately and forever as a distinctive statement for its time, and a timeless piece of architecture. At a point in his career where Pinin Farina was producing some pretty odd shapes, when the promise of the late-1940s Cisitalia coupe seemed to be getting lost, here was a masterpiece. It had from the outset the minimum of ornamentation and the simplest of lines; it seemed bafflingly easy to imitate, yet no-one ever did.

On that long wheelbase, with that almost-snub bonnet over the short V6, Pinin Farina put a body of unrivalled elegance and poise, quite belying the fact that it was laboriously welded together from more than 100 small hand-hammered sections. So underneath it was a sports car ... sure-footed, well-braked, well suspended, adequately powerful, nicely long-legged. So, if you want, it was a successful sports car, driven to victory by some of Italy's greatest. For all that, it is the beauty of this sports car's evening dress which makes the Aurelia GT what it was and always will be; above all else, a masterpiece.
Lancia Aurelia B20 GT

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