June 26th, 2009 by admin

Lancia Alpha Tipo 51
Lancia Theta Tipo 61
Lancia Lambda Tipo 67
Lancia Aprilia Tipo 97
The Alpha was the first car built by Vincenzo Lancia and it was also the first car to be given a Greek name, a fashion that this firm was to continue to follow to this day. The Alpha was offered for sale in five versions : double phaeton, coupé de luxe, limousine, partly openable landaulette and fully openable landaulette. Although orthodox in its general conception, like all the succeeding Lancia models it was a revolutionary machine. The maximum engine speed was very high fro its time (1,800 revs) and its almost square bore and stroke was highly original. This feature was to be adopted again more than half a century later because of the need to achieve high engine speeds. When the prototype of the Alpha had been finished, it was discovered that it could not get through the door of the small workshop that Vincenzo Lancia had chosen for his research laboratory. Various solutions to the problem were proposed , such as tipping the chassis on its side. Vincenzo Lancia objected and instead chose a more drastic but fundamentally more rational solution of knocking down the door!

A version of the Alpha , the Dialpha (the prefixes ‘di’ and ‘tri’ were to be frequently used to denote sports or other nonstandard versions of a model), showed Vincenzo Lancia’s passion for racing (he had been a team driver for Fiat). The Dialpha had a maximum speed of 68 mph and a 6-cylinder in line engine, which is the only example of this number and arrangement of cylinders in Lancia’s history. Only 23 Dialphas, which had an engine capacity of 3815 cc, were built , as opposed to 108 Alphas.
Car : Lancia Alpha Tipo 51
Year : 1908
Engine :4 cylinders in line
Bore and stroke :90×100 mm
Cylinder capacity : 2543 cc
Gears : 4 forward
Brake horse power : 28
Maximum speed : 50 mph
Wheelbase :9 ft 3 ins (3.04 m)
Suspension : front and rear : semi-elliptic leaf- springs