AN EXTRAORDINARY DESIGN 

Before being admired under the vaults of the Grand Palais, the Lancia Lambda experienced a long and difficult genesis, but above all one rich in bold research. For his new model, Vincenzo Lancia was keen to innovate once again, continuing the tradition of the cars he had designed in the past. He already had a number of technical successes to his name, such as the Theta and the Kappa, which he produced after the First World War, and he was constantly drawing up new ideas from his fertile imagination. The Lambda would allow him to experiment and bring to fruition concepts he had been working on for several years, such as the self-supporting structure and the front suspension with in-dependent wheels. The eight engineers in Lancia's design office, based in Turin's San Paolo district, worked enthusiastically 12 hours a day on the projects envisaged by Vincenzo Lancia. The result was revolutionary, and by the end of the summer of 1921, the prototype was completed. An initial test drive was organised in the streets adjacent to the factory, after which the owner himself drove the car from Turin to Mont Cenis, accompanied by his faithful test driver Luigi Gismondi. Engineers Scacchi, Rocco and Cantarini were also part of the trip, the latter two being in charge of developing the 2.1-litre V4 engine. The Lambda was not yet in its definitive phase, even though its self-supporting body-work was based on the patented concept of a curved body with two doors and an open bonnet. Alt-hough the bodywork of the first sketches had very rounded lines, these gradually took on a more angular appearance on the production models that left the factory in March 1922.