Has LANCIA lost the plot?

Guys,

I couldn't help notice something that kinda got me thinking - "How could such a once great Marque be destroyed with such bland styling"

I'm talking about the new range of Lancias.

Quite why parent company FIAT has opted to turn them into some sort of bland people mover I'll never understand. Obviously they have abondoned the marques Sports Car legend. Sad. (Mind you - glad the Alfa Romeo revival is still going strong).

Remember the hot Lancia rally beasts of the 70s and 80s?

The Stratos, the Integrale, the Delta. Wow. Now they were machines worthy of a place in the Sports Car Hall of Fame.

I know there's probablly a pure marketing rationale behind the whole thing - Ferrari and Maserati (high end luxury sports market), Alfa Romeo (Affordable Sports Car) and FIAT (Vehicle of the masses).

Any thoughts?

Moved to Other Marques Lounge

I personally have never really liked the styling of any Lancia TBH. It was they way that they drove that made them special.

The latest one do look a bit "different" although I wouldn't say they were bland.

I reserve full judgement until I see one in the metal though.

Current line-up is bloody horrible.

I'm surprised I see so many on the road.

all the best looking lancias are pre 1970, although the stratos is also very striking.

It's more like they've returned to their roots. For most of Lancia's history, their road cars were firmly in the luxury end of the market. Alfa made racing cars that you could bring on the roads; Lancia made road cars that you could race with.

The Delta Integrale and Stratos were a result of FIAT pushing Lancia as a pure sportscar maker, to compete with Alfa Romeo and BMW. When Fiat bought Alfa Romeo in 1986, they wound up most of Lancia's motorsport activities, as it didn't make sense to hold two competing brands under the one owner, and Alfa had a better image as a performance car maker. This was good for Alfa (they got to survive), and bad for Lancia, who lost sales and direction for at least a decade.

The newer range of cars are aimed at people who want something better than a golf/bravo/astra/mondeo, but don't want something that looks like it just came from a racetrack (via a crash barrier in the case of BMW ).
Even Mercedes have been sucked into this nasty "Max Power" styling: the new C and S-class have no class at all. Thing is, not everyone who appreciates a good car is into performance tuning or competition racing.

Actually, Fiat will be delighted that Alfa owners don't like the current Lancias: this is exactly their intention! Lancia are supposed to steal sales from Audi, Volvo and Mercedes, not Alfa Romeo... (well, that's the grand marketing plan). If Alfa is an everyman's Ferrari, then Lancia is an everyman's Maserati.

Personally, I do like the new Delta, but I don't think it should have been called "Delta", though because that immediately pulls the petrolheads out of the woodwork to say "it's crap - it's not an Integrale".

Was looking at them yesterday in the Top Gear Mag,.........they remind me of the SangYong - most probably the ugliest range of cars ever made.........The Delta does have nice curves

Many years ago my parents had a Lancia Trevi auto, it looked a bit slab like , but it would go like smelly stuff off a stick, and its dashboard looked the the cockpit of an airplane, the only reason they didn,t keep it was there was an onboard computer that kept getting drenched in water, packing in and costing £250 a pop which was a lot of money then ( mid eighties). One time it was put into the main dealer to get sorted to stop water going in, and it came back with a carrier bag put over the box , this is the same dealer that does Alfa cars in my town , still have fond memories of the car though.

Originally Posted by KrisW

It's more like they've returned to their roots. For most of Lancia's history, their road cars were firmly in the luxury end of the market. Alfa made racing cars that you could bring on the roads; Lancia made road cars that you could race with.

The Delta Integrale and Stratos were a result of FIAT pushing Lancia as a pure sportscar maker, to compete with Alfa Romeo and BMW. When Fiat bought Alfa Romeo in 1986, they wound up most of Lancia's motorsport activities, as it didn't make sense to hold two competing brands under the one owner, and Alfa had a better image as a performance car maker. This was good for Alfa (they got to survive), and bad for Lancia, who lost sales and direction for at least a decade.

The newer range of cars are aimed at people who want something better than a golf/bravo/astra/mondeo, but don't want something that looks like it just came from a racetrack (via a crash barrier in the case of BMW ).
Even Mercedes have been sucked into this nasty "Max Power" styling: the new C and S-class have no class at all. Thing is, not everyone who appreciates a good car is into performance tuning or competition racing.

Actually, Fiat will be delighted that Alfa owners don't like the current Lancias: this is exactly their intention! Lancia are supposed to steal sales from Audi, Volvo and Mercedes, not Alfa Romeo... (well, that's the grand marketing plan). If Alfa is an everyman's Ferrari, then Lancia is an everyman's Maserati.

Personally, I do like the new Delta, but I don't think it should have been called "Delta", though because that immediately pulls the petrolheads out of the woodwork to say "it's crap - it's not an Integrale".

I just cant see many buyers opting for a Lancia instead of an Audi, Volvo, Merc etc at least you know what you are getting with an Audi etc...........I cant imagine the resale value of Lancia's - must be huge depreciation

This is the big challenge with launching or re-launching a brand. Cars are bought on reputation, not actual quality. Mercedes got away with producing pretty bad cars for most of the 1990s, because they had a reputation for excellence. "So, your Mercedes, that had to have a complete drivetrain replacement done, is somehow better built than the Alfa that I've driven without a problem for three years?"

Lancia's only reputation in the UK is based on the Delta Integrale, and rust. Overcoming this is the biggest challenge they have. They need to stick at it for at least five years before they're taken seriously. Even a superbly built (if boring) product like Lexus had to work hard to gain a foothold.

The problem is that most car buyers don't know much about cars, and so rely on their "friend who's into cars" who tells them alfas are unreliable and Audis are rock solid, and so obviously hasn't driven a post-2001 model of either. Car magazines are useless as all they do these days is take every single model out on a fecking racetrack and pretend that that's a review.

The biggest cause of depreciation are running cost and dealers discounting new stock. If the cars are reliable (and they should be, given current form) and prices are maintained for new models, the values should hold up.

Hey Kris W.

Great treatsie on the marketing/positioning of Lancia under the FIAT Group umbrella.

You made some excellent points and it actually does make a lot of sense - FIAT not wanting to cannabilise their own sales but rathar pitching Lancia and Alfa Romeo to different markets.

May I ask where you were drawing your info. from?

Enjoyable read.

Cheers.

Sorry to disappoint, but I have no inside knowledge. I just have an interest in the history of cars, and have been reading about this stuff on the net for a long time. For modern Lancias, italiaspeed.com is a good place to find discussion in English (and if you think Alfa is hard done by, you need to read some of the Lancia fans' comments!)

Regarding the brand positioning, lots of internal marketing material gets leaked, like this, that makes the intention quite clear:
http://160.220.151.86/it-it/shai/iin...05 _final.pdf

That presentation is a couple of years old, but there seems to be a definite division of Fiat's brands according to price, performance and luxury that goes a bit like this:

mainstream : Fiat
mainstream, sport : Abarth
premium, sport: Alfa
premium, luxury: Lancia
exotic, sport: Ferrari
exotic, luxury: Maserati

Abarth doesn't quite fit, as its prices are equivalent to Alfa's (if Alfa made a 500, it would cost the same as Abarth's), but Abarths are less "refined" than Alfas. Actually, I think if you're ever going to see a spiritual successor to the Integrale from Fiat group, it will have an Abarth badge on it, not Lancia.

I would like to add here, that the luxury or premium market is much, much harder to crack, IMHO, than the sports or compact market, from a perspective point of view.

In the Panda, Fiat has a wonderful, affordable small car - a true 'Fiat'

In the 159, Alfa has a wonderful looking car - a true sporting Alfa saloon.

Now we have Lancia, trying to be 'luxury'.

But what is luxury? To Rover, it was slapping wood and leather on inferior cars.

Mercedes says it doesn't makes luxury cars; it states it makes quality cars, those with comfort, safety and reliability as their hallmarks, rather than trinkets. In fact, does any German car company claim to make 'luxury' cars?

To Citroen in the C6, luxury is space, refinement and a radical re-thinking of convention.

A Range Rover's towering presence gives it an air of luxurious superiority over mere mortals.

The problem with 'luxury', is that today's luxury (ABS, airbags, air con, sat nav et al) is tomorrow's expected commodity (this is all stuff that you can now get in a Ford Ka).

So you need something exemplary to define you as a Luxury marque. Lexus went down the customer service and reliability route, and by jimny they cracked it.

And now we have Lancia, stupidly pursuing this ultra demanding 'luxury/quality' mantle. And this is a Lancia that will be supported by Fiat's UK dealers, widely acknowledged to be the worst in the world.

Lancia used to be about innovation, and quality engineering. I just wonder whether in the commoditised automotive industry, is there still a place for modern Lancias? If they pursue this high-risk luxury strategy to define themselves, what is their about their product that truely separates them from any other car company?

g

Time waits for no man.

I suspect Lancia became a brand with nowhere to go in the FIAT portfolio once sporting cars became luxury sporting cars. They are struggling to find a niche.

Just about my favourite car of all time is the Fulvia Coupe. my dad always wanted a Flaminia, but could never justify the cost. Even the rusty Beta was a nice car. Dad and I took a test drive in a metallic blue one in Leeds when they first came out. Its went really well, but you could feel it was fragile next to the Peugeot 504 he had then. Don't forget that in those days even the delicious Fiat 124 Coupes rusted away in three or four years. A mate had one and it just dissolved

I've rather lost the plot as to what Lancias are really for these days. I think its one too many badges in the FIAT group sadly. I think Alfa can cover everything that Lancia does/did.

AlfaLincs

Great Points.

Just sad to see a brand with so much history as Lancia slip away.

I can totally understand how the Lancia fans would be ****ed given the marques once awesome status as the "Kings Of World Rally" in the 70s.

And perhaps the most incisive comment may well be that FIAT does have one too many badges and not all will ultimately be able to find a successful, profitable niche.

I just hope ALFA keeps pumping out its gorgeous rides. If the 8C and Mito are any indication - the future looks bright.

P.S. Great FIAT Positioning/Marketing document regarding all its Marques.

Thanks again Kris W.

Sterling Stuff Mate.