New Lancia models

[Shant Fabricatorian]

Unfortunately I have some rather bad news.

Forget Lancia making right-hand drive any time soon. The plans have definitely been scrapped. Until recently there was a proposal to import LHD Ypsilons into the UK in tiny numbers through a couple of dealers in the south of the UK, but nothing was decided and it would not surprise me if this plan has been scrapped. Bit of a mistake on my part. The press seized on the comments that "Lancia would return to markets it had vacated", but this in fact turned out to refer to market segments, not regional markets.

The European dealer network is a huge problem. It is in a horrific state - at last count there were less than a dozen Lancia dealers left in Spain - and it is a priority to sort it out. Despite this prioritisation, however, it is going to take between 5-10 years. That should give you an idea of how bad it is. It's not just the lack of dealers - it is widely acknowledged that the servicing aspect in particular is poor, the attitude ditto, and overall nowhere near the levels of Mercedes or Lexus, which is where it needs to be.

The prognosis is, to be frank, not at all promising. The new Stratos, Delta, Medea and Integrale have all either been scrapped or put on hold indefinitely. This is the result of a recent 'product review' under Herbert Demel (Fiat Auto's new CEO). A big problem is that Demel is not keen on the Lancia nameplate, and has made discouraging comments. A hot Ypsilon HF (using a 105bhp 1.3 Multijet and probably the 110bhp 1.4 FIRE from the Panda Abarth, plus slightly upgraded suspension) was on the cards, and the bodykitted car shown at the Bologna Motor Show pointed the way to probable appearance, but I haven't heard anything and it's possible that's been scrapped too. If it hasn't, expect to see something at Geneva.

Incidentally, don't expect that any new engines or floorplans will be developed specifically for Lancia. They will only follow Fiat and Alfa in this area. Currently, for example, the only Lancia motor not used by any other marque is the 2.0 litre in-line five, in normally-aspirated form in the Lybra (150bhp) and blown in the Thesis (185bhp). If the new Delta ever gets resurrected, the four-wheel drive system which Alfa has developed will possibly be used (my guess), and the 2-litre five from the old Fiat Coupe Turbo (same engine, but higher level of tune - similar to that used by the Kappa 2.0 20V Turbo, actually) has been mooted.

In better news, there is still a small possibility the new Fulvia will be built - Fiat is in talks with Bertone and Zagato, amongst others, to put the car into small-scale production, like Alfa's Spider. The biggest problem is that it's built on the Barchetta, and it really needs a newer floorplan as it's based on the first-generation Punto which was launched in 1993. It's not a bad floorplan but not really desirable for a car which is supposed to be launched more than 10 years later. Lancia will also launch the new Musa at Geneva, a Lancia-ised version of the Fiat Idea. It has front and rear ends very similar to the Ypsilon, and will run the 1.3 and 1.9 Multijet and 1.4 FIRE engines, and actually doesn't look bad for what it is, but the question still remains about how big the market is for an upmarket version of such a car.

The biggest problem is that the picture is changing all the time and it's very difficult to pin anything concrete down. Until Fiat starts to sell big numbers of the Panda/Idea/Punto facelift and Stilo, nothing is going to be decided. Despite being an excellent car, the Thesis sells in tiny numbers and Lancia cops a huge loss on each one sold. For some reason, it just hasn't caught on with the Italian car buying public. In rather better news, the new Ypsilon has racked up about 60,000 orders and will be enhanced by a new gearbox option released in Geneva.

My thoughts on the future of the marque are posted here. I've learnt some of the info I've posted in here is incorrect, so if in doubt just go with the bleaker option:

http://www.viva-lancia.com/lancia_fora/ ... =377&t=308

On the Alfa sell-off, VAG are said to be keen on Alfa, though this enthusiasm might have cooled somewhat given that the new Golf (big profit generator) has been selling relatively poorly. VAG have positioned Seat against Alfa, but without much success, and they have the cash to buy Alfa. The other option is that suggested by Luca Montezemolo, who is keen to spin Alfa into the Ferrari-Maserati Group & create a prestige brands setup, leaving the way clear for Lancia to take over Alfa's territory and become what it was in the seventies again, pitched at achieving sporting elegance. Incidentally, VW are also keen on buying Ferrari and Maserati, as a sportscar group of Lamborghini/Bugatti/Bentley/Alfa/Ferrari/Maserati appeals to them and would obviously be unrivalled. Mind you, I just can't see that happening, although Maserati being flogged is a possibility - they have been getting increasingly close in terms of engine and floorplan technology.

The new Fiat Trepiuno concept (modern recreation of the 500, will be unveiled at Geneva) worries me. In truth, the only thing keeping Lancia alive for at least five years has been the Ypsilon. It's consistently the third best-selling car in Italy and garners useful revenues, primarily from young, fashion-conscious city girls. Think successful competitor to the new Mini. The new Trepiuno is mooted for production in 2006 with a similar engine lineup to the Punto, same platform, about the same size. So why have both? Because the Trepiuno will be the option for the young, fashion-conscious city girls - think Mini competitor. I think you can see where this is going. Because it will steal sales from the Ypsilon, Fiat will lose its last reason to keep the marque alive. In other words, pray, by hook or by crook, for Alfa to move out of its current market slot.

I really wish I could give you better news than that, but I'd be lying. I'm off to hammer out an email to Fiat's press department to see if there's any truth in the rumour that Lancia is actually under threat of being killed off, and I'll see what response comes back.

[Nadzrie]

i like to know when Lancia will produce a right hand car.. to penetrate in asian market, they need to build a right hand car.. who out they that can corfirm this.. i really want to know..

thanks

[nilsfx]

Hi Shant!
Hi to all others

Interesting comments on thie one in here.

Of course, a sell-off of Alfa Romeo could be a solution for all the Lancia issues, but...
I was just wondering if there could be a future for Lancia -without- Fiat...

Any comments?

[Shant Fabricatorian]

Unfortunately, Nadzrie, Lancia won't be building RHD at any stage in the forseeable future, there is no chance of anything before 2010 at the VERY earliest, assuming everything goes without a hitch.

Personally I don't believe that there would be a future for Lancia without Fiat. It's not prestigious or exclusive enough to be a solely supercar manufacturer (a-la Pagani, for example), and we've seen MG Rover head down the 'small mass-production' route (200,000 per annum breakeven), and they're teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. No, I think that Fiat ownership is the best solution for the moment. The company has been starved of funds for years by Fiat but if they adopted the small (50,000) production per annum I think that might be a good solution. There is no way an independent Lancia, manufacturing its own engines, gearboxes, suspensions and floorplans could survive on that sort of output, but with Fiat's economies of scale it's possible. Differently tuned engines and suspensions, but utilising the basic Fiat units, save money but give a unique feel. It can be done. And as someone pointed out in another thread, the Fiat group still makes more cars which I'd like to own than any other car manufacturer. I'm convinced that they know how to make Lancia a desirable brand again - it just remains for them to have the commitment (and the money) to tap that knowledge.

[Nicola]

Personally, I don't think that Lancia could exist without Fiat Auto. The two brands are now too interwoven between engineering, finances, dealers, R&D, etc. for Lancia to exist on it's own. Even looking at it from a product perspective, Lancia doesn't exist in enough markets, have enough unique vehicles, or enough brand exposure to survive on its own.

But I personally feel that the future will start to look brighter for Lancia. While I think that Fiat Auto has abused and starved Lancia for products in the past, they have done a good job recently in trying to inject cash and producst into their current line up. Plans are also underway to expand the Lancia brand througout Europe in Lancia-style "boutiques". Right now, they hardly sell many Lancias outside of Italy and this might be a good solution to get the brand exposure. I don't know why Fiat Auto didn't do this in the past -- afterall, how can you grow a brand when you limit the markets in which they exist? Also Fiat Auto will start to allocate more funds towards "unique" Lancia products in the coming years -- and obviously this is good news. The last major step that Fiat Auto must do is to separate the Fiat Business Group from the Lancia Sub-Business Group and make it a Group of it's own. While I know that future Lancia's wil most likely share major parts and components with Fiat and Alfa Romeo, there should be a separate Business Group within Fiat Auto to address the "uniqueness" of the brand. This would go a long way towards creating an upmarket image for Lancia (which they say they are striving for) and lend and air of exclusivity towards the brand.

However, from a marketing perspective, if I were running Fiat Auto, I would rather have Fiat sold as a separate brand from Lancia. I dont' know how they are sold in Europe, but in the US before Fiat and Lancia left the States, they were sold in the same dealerships. If this is the case in Europe, I would much rather have Lancia and Alfa Romeo sold in the same dealership rather than Fiat/Lancia. The reason is that Fiat as a brand is large enough to sustain sales and has a range of vehicles to suite their customers -- they aruably don't need another brand to sell. Lancia on it's own has only a handful of products, the same for Alfa Romeo. But if both brands were sold side-by-side, then you'd have your Luxury marque right alongside your Sporing marque. Makes more sense to me. Look at it in the US, if Fiat is the mainstream brand and Lancia and Alfa Romeo are lux/sporting brands, then it would make more sense to sell them separately from one another. Would a Chevy/Cadillac dealerhsip make sense? Or perhaps a Ford/Volvo dealership? I wouldn't think so.

[Huib Geurink]

Reading these fora and listening to people confirms my own feeling that one of the problems of Lancia is the treatment of customers and the service. Lancisti expect a "royal treatment", which Fiat dealers are apparently not able to provide.

Rather than seperating Lancia from Fiat as a business group, it is a lot smarter to educate the Fiat dealers to provide the royal treatment to all customers. Each and every customer should be treated with 100% respect and 100% service. Does not matter whether he buys a Panda or a Thesis.

[Julian H. Tice]

Good synthesis of the real world elements impacting on the car market. One of the big problems for a company like Lancia is the dichotomy of its values in the modern car market.

The brand values of Lancia have been somewhat diffused and prostituted since its inclusion in the Fiat group. Thus, Lancia products have been a bit schizofrenic and the customer base has been whittled away. I would guess that the average Lancisti has quite different brand values for Lancia than those whcih are currently being applied. I would also question whether it was financially viable to have a medium scale production brand which upholds the core brand values of Lancisti. For quite a while now the bean counters have been sounding the death bell for Lancia...

Basically, badge engineering doesn´t work for Lancia. The quality and style emblems of Lancia are becoming very superficial. People may gripe at Jaguars being made with diesel engines but for the present the soul of the car is still Jaguar (Sir William please confirm...).

Division in the ranks of Fiat has been showing for some time. Maybe the doomsters will have their day.

JHT