100 Years of Rallye Monte Carlo

100 years ago the first Rallye Monte Carlo was started. Challenges, rules and setup changed from year to year and initially it was more a reliability and regularity test than a speed race. Only in the 60ies they invented the special sections where speed was king. From time to time they invented funny rules, such as the more people you have in the car you more points you gain, or a design evaluation where Coupés were more valuable than Convertibles. Most of us probably remember the times of the Mini Cooper, Alpine A110, Porsche 911, Lancia Stratos, Audi Quattro and the Group B.
On zwischengas you find an article for each year and plenty of pictures (in total more than 200) and it's quite interesting to see the winners and losers coming and going.

Lancia Fulvia Zagato - neat coupé from the sixties

The Lancia Fulvia probably was one of the most successful Lancias over all. 320000 cars were built of which roughly 147000 were Coupés. The rarest of the breed is the Fulvia Sport with Zagato body, only 7120 cars were produced. It wasn't as successful in racing and rallyies as the Fulvia Coupé (HF and so on), but it certainly was a pretty car. Here's a picture from the sales leaflet, and it's really a wonderful foto, isn't it? Before the times of Photoshop the artist was able to capture the touch of history and tradition, combine it with a lifestyle ambiente and even include a bit of love and women's touch. Wonderful! They don't do pictures like this anymore, and they don't do cars like this anymore neither ...

From the RAID Prolog in Zurich

Accidentally I ran into the opening ceremony of this year's RAID Prolog in Zurich today. It's refreshing to see so many classic cars in the center of Zurich where usually only 2010 Mercedes and Porsche drive around. Already in the morning the cars gathered at the Burkliplatz were impressive with Alpine A110, Lancia Flaminia, Facel Facellia, Alfa-Romeo Giulia SS, collections of Jaguar XK and E-Types, Porsche 356 and 914 and even a Citroen DS transporter with a Dino 246 GT loaded. If you want my opinion, they could do this every day!

Oldtimer Sunday Morning in Zug - great variety and really rare cars

Finally I found the time again to visit the Oldtimer Sunday Morning Meeting in Zug. It usually takes place on the first Sunday during the summer months. Usually there's a special topic, today it was "Alfa-Romeo - cuore sportivo". And with probably 100+ Alfas there was a great selection ranging from Giulietta Spiders, to GTAs and other rare types. There was even an Alfasud, that many of you probably remember. I also found quite a selection of Lancias. What really makes this meeting special is that there's everything at one place. You can see Volkswagen Beetles side by side with a Ferrari 250 GT Lusso or an ASA race car. And you can find big American classic cars, Italian and English cars just sitting side by side. It's all about bringing your car and watching all the others. It's a lot of fun.

Killing great tradition car brands - the Chrysler Lancia swap

You might have heard it. Fiat/Chrysler plans to leverage the Lancia brand to sell Chrysler cars in Europe. It's not enough that GM failed with this strategy and basically destroyed Saab, trying to sell rebatched Opels. It's so bloody sad to see this great car brand Lancia being misused. Remember the great cars Lancia built? Aurelia, Fulvia, Stratos, 037, Delta Integrale and so on. Now think of a Voyager or a Sebring coming with a Lancia batch. Horrible! It will not work! And it will be barely possible to rescue the Lancia brand once it's totally molested. Knowing that already today the Lancia brand isn't standing anymore for what it was in the 60ies or 70ies, this new strategy will give it the rest. Really sad!

Car Design Failures - Lancia Thesis

I have been talking about the Lancia Thesis before, and I also wrote about car design a couple of times.
This is probably one of the more interesting design experiments in car history. I really like the back of the car and specifically the design of the rear lights. In contrast the front and specifically the front lights are totally wrong and at least for me look really ugly. How is it possible that the same designer that did such a great job at the back of the car, totally failed when designing the front? Anyway, the rear light design element we can find to some extent again with the new Jaguar XJ.

Great choice of individualist's Limousines in 1980 - Citroen, Alfa-Romeo, Saab, Rover and Lancia

In 1980 there was quite a choice when you wanted to buy a limousine. You could go for a Mercedes E or BMW 5 Series just as today, but there were also some really individualistic limousines available if you didn't want to swim with everybody else. Auto Motor und Sport assembled this nice group of five cars: Alfa-Romeo Sei, Lancia Gamma i-e, Rover 3500 V8 S, Saab 900 Turbo and Citroen CX 2400 GTI. This gave you a choice of very different shapes, but also a broad range of engine technologies. The Alfa-Romeo 6 came with a V6 and six Dell'Orto carburetors, the Citoen had a straight four cylinder engine with fuel injection, the Rover was propelled by the ex-Buick V8 with SU carburetors, the Lancia had a four cylinder boxer engine with Bosch L-Jetronic and the Saab 900 Turbo had a Turbo aspirated straight four cylinder. While the engine choice was quite diverse, the power output was quite comparable, ranging from 130 to 158 hp. 0-100 km/h could be reached in 9.4 to 10.9 secs. Top speed was 192 to 202 km/h. The Rover and the Alfa were fastest thanks to the superior engine power output. Interestingly the Rover was the most fuel efficient car with 13.6 l/100 km despite the largest engine and the highest number of cylinders. None of the cars was all wheel driven, the Alfa and the Rover powered the rear wheels the others the front wheels. Roughly DM 27'000 to 31'000 had to be on your bank account if you wanted one of these cars, 2.5 to 3 times of what a Ford Fiesta Festival would have cost you then.
I guess we can only dream of so much individualism today!

Lancia - known for its traditional quality

When you look at the tagline of this 1964 advertisement you probably have to smile. Lancia is certainly not known for its quality reputation. Too many things went wrong, specifically in the 80ies. Rust, bad reliability and all kinds of funny things that could happen with a Lancia killed this quality reputation, especially in the UK where the picture it taken. Too bad actually, Lancia was a synonym for advanced engineering in the 50ies and 60ies and we all remember the Lancia Stratos for winning the rallye world championship, the Lancia Fulvia and the 037 Rallye.

Group B Rallye Cars - unbelievably quick and powerful

Many people remember the Group B Rallye Cars, the Audi Quattros, the Peugeots and the Lancia Delta Integrales. Some with four wheel drive, some with mid engine, all with turbo, roughly 900 kg and 400+ HP. Rockets on gravel. Impressive. Have a look at this wonderful video!

Top Gear on the car maker that made the highest number of great cars

Last Sunday night Top Gear presented the top 10 car makers coming from votes of their viewers (or so). Anyway the question was: What car makers made the highest number of great cars. Great cars means not just good cars, but cars to remember, cars that are exceptional. Well, the top ten Richard and Jeremy showed (see picture) were not what you would expect. Ferrari was on the tenth place, Ford on first. But Richard and Jeremy didn't agree neither. They themselves named Lancia (they were not able to pronounce it correctly of course) as being the car maker with the most great cars.
And they presented quite some evidence. You may not agree with all the (seven) cars they called great, i.e. the Monte-Carlo or so. But clearly they got some cars right, i.e. the all time icon Lancia Stratos, the Lancia Fulvia, the 037 and the Delta Integrale. They missed some of the others (i.e. Aurelia, etc). But they also showed some great rallye pictures and made the point that there's no other car maker winning the Rallye World Championship more often than Lancia. Also Lancia is responsible for many engineering's first in the car industry. Not all of them really made sense, but there was certainly a lot of creativity! Today Lancias are not what they were. Today Lancias are basically rebodied Fiats and some of them are pretty ugly on top of that. It's a sad story. But, hey, there are still Fulvias available at acceptable prices, and even good Betas are rarely beyond 20k. And for the same money you can also get a Delta Integrale with true rallye pedigree. So, get them, as long as they are affordable!