This 1934 Lancia Belna with Pourtout* body showed up for the Monterey Car Weekend early in the present century (okay; it was 2006). Lancia was a featured make at the Concorso Italiano, and because of that, there was plenty of unconventional engineering on display. Then again, there would've been plenty of enchanting engineering on view even if only a couple vintage Lancias had shown up. But because the examples in attendance covered the golden era of Lancia, from the Twenties to the Sixties, there was plenty of exotic coachwork on display to go with all that engineering...
One thing we wouldn't have expected, though, was a French-built Lancia with a retractable steel roof turning it from an all-weather coupe into a cabriolet. But from 1931 to 1936, Lancia operated a factory at Bonneuil-sur-Marne, built versions of its Augusta and later Aprilia models, and employed the services of French coachbuilder Marcel Pourtout* for a small series of retractable hardtops as well as some conventional cabrios and roadsters. For the French market, Lancia renamed the 1.2 liter V4-powered Augusta the Belna, and the later Aprilia the Ardennes. Pourtout's designer Georges Paulin* had pioneered the Eclipse retractable steel hardtop design on Peugeot chassis, and it fit equally well on the Belna chassis...
The sweeping lines of the Pourtout Belna conceal the car's small size; it sits on a 104 inch wheelbase and is relatively light. Lucky thing, because the power available from the V4 is in the VW Beetle 1200 range. Two of the Pourtout-bodied Belna Eclipse retractable hardtops are known to survive...
The Pourtout-bodied Belna fits into a line of historic Lancias including Pinin Farina's Aurelia B24 Spider America in the foreground, the same designer's Flaminia coupe behind it, and behind that a 1924 Lambda, the production car in which Vincenzo Lancia introduced unitized body construction and V4 powerplants in 1922.
Below we find an early Sixties Flaminia Zagato Sport in red, a V4-powered Appia sedan, another Flaminia sharing the same 60-degree V6 and transaxle as the Sport, and an Aurelia B20 coupe with an earlier version of that drivetrain, but with a version of the sliding pillar front suspension that first appeared on the Lambda.
Jet airplanes were a new thing in the Fifties, and inspired automotive experiments with turbine engines* as well as jet-derived themes like fins and air intakes. Beginning in 1952, Pinin Farina began to explore these themes on a Jet series of PF200* show cars based on Lancia's Aurelia B52 chassis. Eventually PF would build a roadster, 2 convertibles and 3 coupes with this jet theme on Lancia chassis. Lancia and PF didn't need to bother with actual turbine engines; the Aurelia's aluminum V6, 4-speed transaxle and 4-wheel independent suspension made it the most advanced car on the market...
This convertible from 1953 shows off the jet-inspired, chromed oval air intake and long, low proportions of the PF design. Details differed between cars; the first-built roadster featured exhausts exiting where the tail lights are on this convertible, and one convertible lacked the chrome surrounding the air intake.
The PF200c coupe, from 1952, shows off a glassy, cantilevered semi-fastback roof. That cantilever and wraparound backlight recall earlier Studebakers, while the overall proportions and long wheelbase predict the Studebaker Starliner that would arrive in 1953.
The last of the jet-themed PF200 Aurelias appeared in 1955 on one of the handful of B55 chassis, featuring the new De Dion rear suspension on a shorter wheelbase than the B52. This unique B55 Jet, shown below, shared the wraparound windshield of the '54 car, but a different treatment of the rear roofline and greenhouse than on the earlier coupes...
On that last Jet from 1955, the shape of the rear quarter windows, along with the sail panels acting as C-pillars and flanking a recessed backlight, anticipates the Jaguar XJS, a design that would appear two decades later...
Ghia built at least two bodies in alloy on Lancia's Aurelia B52 chassis to this design by Gian Paolo Boano, son of Mario Boano, who had designed the famous Aurelia B20 coupe. The B52 chassis was aimed at specialist coachbuilders, unlike the production B10 sedan on the same 112.6 inch wheelbase. Today the Ghia Aurelias, with their fully-enclosed wheels, recall Pinin Farina's designs for Nash, from the same period. Unlike most special bodies by Pinin Farina and Vignale on the B52, Ghia avoided the traditional shield-shaped Lancia grille...
At the end of that 2006 Concorso, we managed to check out a few of the cars before they were loaded onto trailers. Below, the Aurelia Jet convertible waits tor transport. Note the right-hand drive; Lancia, like the specialist French car makers, held onto RHD well into the Fifties. Behind the Pinin Farina Jet is an Iso Fidia S4 sedan from a decade and a half later, designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro for Ghia.
In the foreground above we see an early Flaminia Zagato Sport coupe, the Jet convertible, a white Appia Zagato coupe, and on the right, an Aurelia B24 Spider America from the mid-Fifties. Below is a close-up of that Series 1 Flaminia Zagato. The Series 1 design, first shown in late 1958, featured aerodynamic bubbles over the headlights, light alloy bodywork with Zagato's trademark "double-bubble" roof, a 2.5 liter version of the aluminum block V6 from the Aurelia, and a four-speed transaxle. Despite improvements made on later cars, including a 2.8 liter engine, collectors value the Series 1 for its rarity (99 built), purity of line, and those headlight bubbles. Of all the cars lined up for the trailers, this one offered the most tempting invitation to ditch the trailer for a drive down Highway 1 to Big Sur and beyond...
*Footnote: For a look at other designs by Georges Paulin for Carrosserie Pourtout, you might check out "The French Line Part 1: Carrosserie Pourtout---Well, Maybe Not for Everyone...", posted here on Jan. 17, 2020. And for a brief history of Ghia-bodied cars from the late Forties through the Fifties, see our archives for "The Italian Line: Ghia Part 1—International Style", posted on October 22, 2020. And for a discussion of Pinin Farina's Lancia Jets and related designs, see "Jet Cars, Part 1: Real & Not So Real", posted May 21, 2016.
Color Photo Credits:
All color photos are by the author.
Monochrome Photo Credits:
1953 PF200C coupe + 1954 PF200 Coupe II: Pinin Farina on viaretro.com
1955 PF200 Aurelia B55: Pinin Farina on favcars.com
Aurelia B52 Ghia: carrozzieri-italiani.com
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