2023-04-15 13:00:11
Lancia, which its former owner FCA (Fiat-Chrysler) promised a slow disappearance, will attempt a new start under the aegis of the Stellantis group. Twelve years after the launch of its latest model, now exclusively marketed in Italy, and eight years after leaving the French market, the Italian brand will launch three models in four years. In 2024, the little Ypsilon will finally be renewed and available in an electrified version. It will be followed in 2026 by a crossover then, in 2028, by a sedan, two all-electric vehicles.
To see Lancia being the subject of a plan called Renaissance has something counter-intuitive. Stellantis would have announced the revival of Panhard or Simca, it would have been hardly more surprising as the Italian brand born in 1906 seemed to have been lost in limbo. From the 1990s, the recovery plans followed one another without this small manufacturer managing to stem a decline which led it to disappear de facto from the radar since 2015. Stellantis, whose general manager, Carlos Tavares, is not not known for launching projects at a loss, has nevertheless decided to bet on the awakening of a brand that some call a “zombie” and which sold only 41,000 vehicles in 2022.
Integrated into the group’s premium division, the Lancia brand would like to play the card of Italian chic and elegance – on April 15, a concept car prefiguring the stylistic choices “broken” of the future range for the next ten years has been unveiled – alongside Alfa Romeo, which wants to embody fashionable Milanese sportiness, and DS, which claims to be “French refinement”. If the coupling may seem complementary – although cohabitation between Lancia and Alfa Romeo has never been very fruitful in recent decades – it combines three brands which only occupy a very small market share (less than 0.5 % each) in Europe and are barely better represented in the premium segment.
Surfing on nostalgia
According to a recipe which has been very successful with the Mini or the Fiat 500 – and which Renault is trying to reproduce with the Alpine range as well as its future R5 and 4L, Volkswagen with its ID. Buzz, self-proclaimed heir to the Combi, or even the Chinese MG – it’s about capitalizing on a historical heritage, surfing on nostalgia to give substance to new vehicles. Lancia, which will benefit from the platforms and technology of the other brands in the group, will therefore bring old names (Aurelia, Delta) back into service and multiply the nods to the style of its past models. Hoping to thrill the baby boomers who have experienced the heyday of the brand and constitute the bulk of new car buyers, whose average age exceeds 55 years.
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