The world might not have heard of Lancia had it not been for the automaker’s involvement in rally cup racing. Lancia’s Fulvia won the International Championship for Manufacturers in 1972, followed by the Stratos and 037, both winning multiple World Rally Championship competitions. Without these victories, car enthusiasts might have missed out on beauties such as the two-door 1961 Lancia Flavia now for sale on eBay Motors.
Lancia introduced the Flavia at the 1960 Turin Motor Show. It was a midsize sedan powered by a 77-horsepower horizontally-opposed four-cylinder engine and four-speed manual transmission. It wasn’t a particularly powerful car with a leisurely zero-to-sixty time of 19 seconds and top speed of 93 miles per hour. But in some ways, the Flavia was ahead of its time: a front-wheel drive chassis with front wishbone suspension and four-wheel disc brakes.
Shortly after its introduction, Lancia teamed up with Pininfarina to create the two-door coupe pictured here, the Vignale convertible, and Zagato a limited production lightweight car. All three models came with dual carburetors, giving the coupe and convertible 89-horsepower and the Zagato 100 horsepower. During the Flavia’s 10-year run, the original engine was replaced with a 1.8-liter mechanical injection block with a five-speed manual gearbox. All models left the factory with Pirelli tires.
Given that Lancia was a small company, one might wonder how it recruited three of Italy’s best known design houses to collaborate on the Flavia. The answer lies in its heritage and racing history, dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century.
A Long Racing Heritage
In 1906, 25-year old Vicenzo Lancia, a retired accountant and test driver for Fiat, decided to start a car company with his colleague, Claudio Fogolin. Perhaps it was his penchant for numbers that made Vicenzo such a stickler for details, introducing engineering gems such as the Alpha and Theta. In 1922, Lancia produced the forward-thinking Lambda with independent front suspension and the world’s first narrow V-4 engine. In 1937, Lancia started racing, with outstanding performances from its four-wheel drive automobiles in rally competitions.
When Gianni Lancia took over the company at the end of World War II following his father’s death, he hired engineer Vittorio Jano to create a new generation of performance cars for the post-War world. Both Lancia and Jano had a keen interest in the new Formula One World Championship racing series. Gianni inherited the racing bug from his father while Jano had designed Alpha Romeo’s legendary 6C, P2 and P3 models. The Lancia D50 made its racing debut at the Spanish Grand Prix: the final event for the 1954 Formula One season.
In 1955, Lancia family sold its controlling share in the company to Ferrari, which continued to campaign the racecar as the Lancia-Ferrari D50 and eventually the Ferrari D50. In 1956 Juan Manuel Fangio won the World Championship of Drivers with the Ferrari D50. D50s competed in fourteen Formula-One Grand Prix, winning five.
The Lancia Flavia was no mere passenger car: its roots as exotic as the competition in the Formula One racing circuit. In 1970, the Lancia Flavia was renamed the 2000 to designate its new more powerful engine. Hagerty insurance values a concourse condition Lancia Flavia at $16,300, with a vehicle in excellent condition going for just under $12,000.
At a time when values of exotic Italian cars are out of reach for most collectors, the elegant Lancia Flavia is a rare exception, paying tribute to a time in history when the only rule was no rules at all.