Lancia Belna

The official launch of the Lancia Augusta took place at the Milan Motor Show in April 1933, but as was customary for the Turin-based manufacturer, the car was presented to the public at the Paris Motor Show on 5 October 1932, as the French market was an important part of the brand's exports. With the Wall Street crash and the international economic crisis of 1929, customs regulations changed radically, and the importer Lancia-France decided to produce this model in a new factory near Paris and to call it Belna.

For the first time in its history, Lancia was going to produce cars from its range in a factory outside Italy. The original version of the Augusta has the tough task of following in the footsteps of the Lambda, a model launched a decade earlier and which introduced an era of modernity to the motor car, with its cutting-edge technology. These included a self-supporting monocoque structure, a very narrow V-shaped 4-cylinder engine and front suspension with independent wheels. While the Augusta is a small, popular saloon based on a more modest economic model, due to the economic crisis, it nonetheless incorporates most of the modern solutions of its predecessor.

ADAPTING TO THE CRISIS 

The global financial crisis of 1929 had a profound effect on the global automotive industry. The golden years that followed the Great War were succeeded by a period during which initial production and development plans were scaled back due to a lack of commercial potential. Until then, there had been no mass production of Lancia cars, preferring top-of-the-range models that had enabled the company to get through the early years of the crisis thanks to the high reputation of its products.

In the end, however, the economic situation caught up with Lancia, and with its fairly high prices, customers were gradually turning to the more economical mid-range models that were available in particular from Fiat. As a result, from the early 1930s onwards, Vincenzo Lancia, the founder of the brand, started working on a small, popular model which, while being in a more modest category, would have the refinement and advanced technology of a Lancia in the top range. The small Augusta would save Lancia economically and make it one of Italy's most technologically advanced companies. The prototype Augusta was revealed at the Paris Motor Show in October 1932, but the definitive car was presented a few months later at the Milan Motor Show in April 1933, once Vincenzo Lancia had sorted out a number of patent issues relating to the famous self-supporting body structure without any central pillar.

THE FRENCH SUBSIDIARY  

Upon the launch of the Lamda, the American companies Budd and Chrysler both claimed paternity of this modern and revolutionary design, but both were denied, as Lancia had registered its patent well before them. In order to avoid the exorbitant customs duties on cars imported into France in the early 1930s, Lancia decided to set up a subsidiary for its brand in France. These duties amounted to 150% if at least 85% of the parts used in the vehicle were not manufactured in France! On 1 October 1931, the subsidiary Lancia-France Automobiles was created in Bonneuil-sur-Marne, south-east of Paris.

At the beginning of 1933, a brand new factory was built in Bonneuil on a 5-hectare site not far from the old port. The Bonneuil plant employed around 550 people, all trained on Lancia's assembly lines in Italy. The first model produced by LanciaFrance in 1934 was the French version of the Augusta, renamed the Belna. This was followed by the Ardennes, the French version of the Aprilia, from 1937 to 1938. Lancia-France ceased operations in the autumn of 1938, shortly after the Munich Agreement, in retaliation for sanctions taken by France against Italy following the invasion of Libya by Fascist troops. A number of the Belna's mechanical parts were cast in the Ardennes foundries at Monthermé, while the stamping of body panels, the casting of light-alloy parts and the manufacture of mechanical parts such as gear cutting were carried out at the Bonneuil site. There were few differences between the Lancia Augusta and its French sister, the Belna. The Belna's main distinguishing features were its Cibié headlights, O.S. instruments, stamped metal grille panels and perforated wheel rims. It was finished to the same standard as the 1934 Augusta Lusso, its interior more luxurious, with, among other things, deflectors at the top of the windows, bonnet mouldings, painted mesh on the sides of the body and a V-shaped radiator grille.