Lancia's reputation for engineering innovation began under founder Vincenzo Lancia; he released the Lambda in 1922, pioneering unit body construction and independent front suspension with a unique V4 engine design, all firsts in series production, and 13,000 of these landmark cars would be built. Just after Vincenzo's untimely death in 1937 Lancia introduced the Aprilia, a compact unit-construction V4 with four-wheel independent suspension. In between there were the Dilambda and Astura V8s, and in 1950 young Gianni Lancia marshaled the engineering team assembled by his dad to release the classic Aurelia, the first V6 production car, also featuring a rear-mounted transaxle for 50-50 weight distribution. The Aurelia soon acquired a reputation for superior handling, and in 1951 a 2- liter Aurelia B-20 coupe called attention to this by finishing 2nd in the Mille Miglia thousand mile road race, just behind a 4 liter Ferrari. Around this time, the galloping elephant insignia began to appear on privately-entered Lancia cars in competition. One explanation for this prancing pachyderm (first seen in blue and later in red) is that the running elephant was a good luck charm in the Far East; another was that Lancia intended to poke fun at Ferrari's prancing horse. Lancia, encouraged by the success of amateurs running a relatively docile touring car, would soon enough irritate Ferrari by introducing a series of cars more narrowly focused on road racing; the D Series. The first of these was the D 20 coupe with tubular chassis, and engine and transaxle design adapted from the Aurelia. But the V6, in light alloy like the Aurelia, substituted 4 overhead cams for that car's cam in block with pushrods. Lancia tested at least three different configurations on the 7 cars built beginning in 1952. These included engine sizes just inside 2.5 liter and 3 liter limits, as well as a supercharged 2.7 liter; the latter raced at the '53 Le Mans but suffered a breakdown. Shapely and slender coupe coachwork was provided by Pinin Farina, with the shield-shaped Lancia grille, prominent air intake, and tapered rear fenders providing contrast with the Ferrari coupes which were about to come from PF.
D 20 coupe
By 1953 Lancia had settled on an unsupercharged 3.0 liter V6 with 3 Weber carbs for the D 23. The relatively long wheelbase (102 inches) was the same as the D 20, but Pinin Farina now provided spider bodies for the 4 cars built.
Only one D 23 is known to survive; this is in the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands…
D23 spider
Racing in Italy, here a D23 is flanked by PF-bodied Ferrari (left) and Vignale Ferrari (right), with two more Prancing Horses following and a lone Gordini (see "The Etceterini Files Part 6" in these posts for 3-27-16) in the second row at right...
D23, center front row, at the Autodromo
But it was with the D-24* released late in 1953 that the engineering team led by ex-Alfa (and future Ferrari) designer Vittorio Jano put Lancia on the map in road racing. Bodies were again provided by PF, and hand-hammered out of magnesium alloy. The slight ripples this created, along with the exposed rivets, gave the cars a brutal, no-nonsense air. Reducing the wheelbase to 94.5 inches and increasing engine size to 3.3 liters, Jano found the sweet spot of power (265 hp), speed (162 mph) and reliability. Proving the latter, D 24s finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the 1953 Carrera Panamericana, the epic Mexican cross-country race. Lead drivers of the first three two-man teams were Fangio, Taruffi and Castellotti. It would likely have been 1-2-3-4 for Lancia, but the D 24 piloted by Felice Bonetto went airborne on a village street and his head struck a wooden shutter which had been opened by spectators, killing him instantly. Stunned by the loss of Bonetto but encouraged by the reliability of the cars, Gianni Lancia pressed ahead with plans for the '54 race season, when his cars won the Mille Miglia (26 minutes ahead of the 2nd place Ferrari) as well as the Targa Florio, finishing second at the Sebring 12 Hours.
For the D 25 readied in the late summer of 1954, Lancia became the first Italian competitor (and the second anywhere after Jaguar) to adopt disc brakes, expanded the V6 to 3.75 liters and 305 hp, and shortened the wheelbase. Two cars were built, both with smoother, more aerodynamic bodywork shown on the single surviving car.
But the D 25s only contested the Tourist Trophy race in the UK during 1954, as Lancia's slender resources were now concentrated on readying the D 50 Grand Prix single-seater for battle. On this design, a 4-cam 2.5 liter V8, Jano adopted the novel idea of placing the engine and driveshaft at an angle to the car's centerline so that the driver could sit lower in the chassis. Later in the decade, low center of gravity would be achieved in Grand Prix cars by following the lead of Cooper and Porsche, and adopting mid-mounted engines behind the driver. But in 1954, the D 50 was state of the art, with its low profile, rear-mounted transmission and side-mounted fuel tanks, which combined to maintain predictable, balanced handling as the car used up fuel...
The cars were not ready until late in the '54 season, where the two D 50s failed to complete the GP of Spain. But in 1955 the team contested 4 championship races, with Alberto Ascari making a promising start by winning the first non-championship races at Turin and Naples, where his Lancia beat the Mercedes for the first time. The most dramatic (but not the happiest) result was at Monaco, where the Lancias finished 2nd, 5th and 6th. The Mercedes W196 racers of Fangio and Moss held the first two places untll mid-race, but then Fangio retired and Ascari, dueling with Moss right up until Moss suffered engine implosion, drove his D 50 into the harbor and had to swim for the rescue boat, allowing Maurice Trintignant to take the checkered flag in a Ferrari 625. Just a few days later, Ascari died testing a Ferrari Monza* sports car at its namesake track. Gianni Lancia, deeply affected by the loss of another great friend, and faced with the mounting costs of competing against the Mercedes corporate juggernaut, decided to retire from racing. Lancia scrapped all but two of the six D24s and one D 25. The Lancia team donated all the D 50 racers and the related spares to the Ferrari team. The following year, Juan Manuel Fangio won the World Championship driving a Lancia-Ferrari D 50.
In 1960 the High Fidelity club of Lancia loyalists was formed. They adopted the red elephant insignia for their group, because an elephant never forgets...
*Footnote: Ironically, Ascari was not even scheduled to share test duties with Castellotti on that day, but decided to try a few practice laps. Ascari had been cleared by Lancia to drive Ferrari sports cars as Lancia was by then concentrating on single-seaters.
*Postscript: We finally got a close look at a Lancia D24 a couple years after this was written; our photos appear in the post for August 28, 2018: "1st Impressions of the Monterey
Historics: Whatever Lola Wants."
Photo credits:
Red elephant insignia: Mayo Motor Library
Lancia D 20 (black & white shot): junglekey.it
Lancia D 20, D 23 & D 24 (color shots): wikimedia
Lancia D 50 Plan view: hemmings.com
Lancia D 50 with Alberto Ascari: wikimedia
HF insignia: capricorn1.co.uk
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