1923-1931 Lancia Lambda

Displayed at the Paris Auto Salon in November 1922, the 1923 Lancia Lambda was instantly recognized as a new approach to cars. "Even those with no engineering interests had only to look at it to know that it was different," wrote Lancia historian Nigel Trow. "It was low and angular, with a quality of unity, of being 'all of a piece.' It looked deliberate, something that was designed from scratch by a team that knew exactly what was wanted. The car was a total departure from all previous practice."

Of course, not everything about the car was new, but certainly nobody else clapped so many innovations onto one model. The engine, for example, was unprecedented: a V-4 banked at a tiny 13-degree angle (later 14 degrees), with a flat cylinder-head face and combustion chambers in the block. Nobody had ever seen anything like it.

The torpedo body, with pontoon or sweeping cycle fenders, looked more like a fanciful doodle than a production 1923 automobile. The brakes, to cite another attribute, operated on all four wheels. Designed by engineer Battista Falchetto, they were unorthodox in the extreme: conventional manufacture at that time tended to dictate rear brakes only.

This was, incidentally, an example of Vincenzo Lancia's standards governing the car's development -- he merely told his engineers that the brakes, whatever they were, must be capable of hauling the car down repeatedly from 100 kilometers per hour (62.5 mph). Falchetto suggested the use of front brakes by taking Lancia for a test drive in which the standard was met by a car fitted with front brakes only. Only later was it realized that front brakes do 80 percent of the work on any automobile.

The Lambda was faster over a twisty road than anything Lancia had hitherto produced, including the big Tri Kappa, an eight with twice the horsepower. It was soon being raced by privateers all over Europe. In 1924, the Lambdas of Riva and Gauderman finished 1-2 in the under 2,500-cc class in France's Routes Pavees race; another Lambda won the Indian Tourist Trophy at Simla in 1925; the Circuit of La Spezia in 1926; the Tunis-to-Tripoli race in 1927.

When Italy's famous open road race, the Mille Miglia, was instituted in 1927, a trio of Lancias took the first three places overall. The following year saw a Lambda entered by the factory, which prepared it merely by fine tuning a production model; it held second place most of the way and would have finished second to a more powerful supercharged Alfa Romeo had the engine not dropped a valve toward the finish.

Gismondi, the Lambda driver, actually held the Alfa in average speed, thanks to Lancia's superior brakes, handling, long-range fuel tank, and modified fuel supply to prevent fuel starvation when ascending the mountains.

To follow the Lancia Lambda story to 1931, continue to the next page.

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Over the production of 13,000 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931 Lancia Lambdas in nine series through 1931, the specification evolved gradually. Displacement was increased to 2.4 liters on the 1926 seventh series and to 2.6 liters on the 1928 eighth series. Also with the seventh series, Lancia parted with its revolutionary practice by offering the option of a separate chassis -- a product of necessity and the pressure of custom coachbuilders.

The body makers had a complaint that would dog every unit-bodied car from the Lambda forward: The monocoque shell was very difficult to alter, and there was only so much the specialists could do with the factory bodies. (One of the loudest complaints came from Vincenzo Lancia's good friend, Battista Farina.)

Also, some owners wanted to create more sporting bodywork for competition; this often took the form of shortening the wheelbase, which could not have been more disastrous. The alteration ruined the handling and seriously weakened the body.

So the Lambda had a problem. Simultaneous with its arrival had come a wave of prosperity in the mid- to late Twenties. There was a huge market for custom bodies, and this meant that a separate chassis option was crucial. "This is perhaps why enthusiasts lay so much store by the seventh series Lambda," wrote Frostick, "since this was the last, and most highly developed version, of the original fascinating concept."

These later custom-bodied Lambdas led in time to the factory's own luxury model, the Dilambda, with a V-8 and separate chassis, independent front suspension, servo brakes, central chassis lubrication, and twin electric fuel pumps. Lancia built 1,700 Dilambdas; they in turn fostered other notable productions, including the prewar Astura and the postwar Flaminia.

See the next page to find specifications for the 1923-1931 Lancia Lambda.

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The 1923-1931 Lancia Lambda was an innovative car, the first to use unit-body construction and front brakes, which were much more effective at stopping the car than rear brakes. Find specifications for the 1923-1931 Lancia Lambda below:

Engines:

Transmission:

Construction: Unit body

Suspension, front: Sliding-pillar, transverse leaf spring

Suspension, rear: Solid axle, parallel elliptical leaf spring

Brakes: 4-wheel mechanical, rear wheel handbrake

Wheelbase (in.): 122.0 (later 135.01)

Weight (pounds): 1,720

Top speed (mph): 72-78

Production: 12,530 or 12,999 (depending upon source)

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