Visit to the Aurelia exhibition at the Bonfanti-VIMAR Museum

[Sebastien]

I have just come back from Italy where I had a look at the in exhibition organized by the Bonfanti-Vimar Museum near Bassano di Grappa, with the help of the Registro Aurelia Italiano. It was incredibly thorough, with 27 cars spanning the period between the Aprilia based prototypes, with 45°V engine, and the Florida, which previewed the coming Flaminia.

All Aurelia models are exhibited, the berlinas including a rare B15 limousine, the B20 coupe, the B24 spider and convertible, and most interesting, the « Fuoriserie » Aurelias. There were sporting coupes and spiders, the luxurious Pinin Farina cabriolets, and the representative Pinin Farina B51 berlina, with its 4 doors in an extended B20 shape.

Most interesting for me was the seldom seen « Bimotore » prototype, which De Virgilio designed for military purposes as a fast all-terrain reconnaissance vehicle during his summer holidays in 1953. Lancia was no newcomer to the field, having already produced the Astura based « Lynx » during the war. But De Virgilio’s idea was far more advanced. He had carefully studied the american Jeep, and had noticed that in case of failure of the only engine, not infrequent at the time, the whole vehicle was incapacitated, with serious consequences for its occupants. He decided on using 2 detuned Aurelia 2l engines, the same as those used in the B15 berlinas, each coupled to its own « bloco propulsore », i.e. the well known clutch + gearbox + final drive, by a special casting that allowed the engine to be placed in parallel to each gearbox. That special casting also included a 2-speed reductor gearbox, and an additional fluid flywheel coupling, so that in addition a low range of 4 speeds was available for all terrain work.
One each of those very compact powerplants was placed at each end of the vehicle, which offered in the middle a passenger compartment capable of transporting five fully equipped soldiers, in addition to the driver, which was seated in an advanced position, in front of the soldiers. All wheel independent suspension and homokinetical driveshaft couplings were of the succesfull « Lynx » design. With a 1'760 Kg weight (fully fuelled, ready for battle) and a power of 130 HP (2x 65 HP) the performance of the 12-cylinder « Bimotore » was the highest in its class.
According to the exhibition catalog 4 of those prototypes were built, of which the one exhibited was discovered only recently in a barn of the italian « Frecce Tricolore » infantry regiment, based in Vistaguardia, near Como. It is well known that after comparative testing between the competing Alfa, Fiat and Lancia offerings, the Fiat made « Campagnola » was finally prefered, and purchased in important numbers by the italian forces.

The only remaining Lancia « Bimotore » is kept in working order by its italian private owner, who will be participating at the next Aurelia Registro Meeting in Sardinia, where in its capable hands it will demonstrate its incredible terrain climbing capabilities.

The exhibition is due to finish on april 9th, I hope that it is not too late to once more encourage all Lancia afficionados to visit this unique reminder of Lancia engineers’ inventiveness.

[Michel]

Ciao Sebastien

Je n'ai malheureusement pas pu aller visiter le Muse Bonfanti avec les sublimes Aurelia.

Est-ce que tu a des Fotos de ces belles voitures? Surtout de la Florida?

Merci et salutations de Berne

Michel

[Florent]

Sebastien,

Thanks a lot for this detailed report.
I warmly support Michel's demand, photos would be so appreciated, please ask Huib how to post some on this forum for those would won't have time to go and visit this exhibition before it ends.

Merci d'avance

Florent

[Geoffrey Goldberg]

Thanks to Sebastien for his wonderful update on this show. My photos of the show at Bonfanti can be seen at the following site:

http://geoffreyg.smugmug.com/Cars

I was able to visit the show with Joachim Griese, Nino Romeo and Marcello Minerbi, all of whom were on the Lancia 66 trip across the USA. They were wonderful friends on this recent rip to Italy and thanks to all three of them.

On Sebastien's recommendation, we also went to the show on automobiles at the MART Museum at Rovereto, about an hour from Bonfanti. This show was absolutely incredible, and featured important cars from the entire history of automobile making, espcially European engineering breakthroughs. Lancias are well represented with an Aurelia Spider, an Aprilia and a Lambda. Also, the Megagamma is there too, predecessor to the Renault Espace and all those other SUV's!

Really an amazing show, and photos of that can be seen on the same site listed above. I'll post more info from this most interesting trip at www.lanciainfo.com, on the blog there.