Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider America

If you ask today’s children about the Italian car brand Lancia, now, only one and a half years after the brand was taken off all European markets, there is just a shrug. Nowadays, Lancia offers only the small model Ypsilon in Italy and is gone from collective memory. Gone are also the great years of luxury vehicles, sports cars and great rally successes. Model names like Aprilia, Flavia, Fulvia, Beta, Gamma and Delta also became part of automotive history as race victories at Targa Florio, in Formula 1 or in other sports car races as well as various technical milestones before the wars.

One of the most beautiful models of the brand was created on the advice of a famous American with Austrian origin, who also suggested cars like Mercedes-Benz 300 SL and 190 SL, Porsche 356 Speedster or BMW 503 and 507 at the manufacturers: Max Hoffman. He also saw good opportunities for a two-seater sporty Roadster from Lancia and thus met with open ears in Italy. The base was the Aurelia, built since 1950. Lancia left it to Pininfarina to find nice forms and a beautiful body shape for the shortened chassis of the Aurelia B20 Coupé. From today’s perspective, one can only congratulate the designers again and again, the curves, beads and edges make a georgeous Roadster, which was named a Spider at Lancia. Due to the provision for the American market, the word ‘America’ was often added. Its panoramic windscreen is reminiscent of motor boats of the same era. That Pininfarina, Lancia and even Max Hoffman thought more of selling the car in the warm southern states than in colder northern states is clearly visible in the awkwardly mounted weather protection and plug windows, which just hold a bit of wind and at least the bulk of the raindrops outside with effort. However, with its 120 hp V6 engine, it was well enough motorized to appeall to amateur racers when needed.

At the Auto Salon in Brussels 1954 the Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider America finally debuted and went into production afterwards. However, this was due to relatively low demand only a year in which just 240 copies left the Lancia factory – 59 of them with right-hand drive. At that time, it was still mandatory on the Italian market, even though the traffic was driving on the right side of the road. It is still rumored today that 50 new Aurelia B24 Spider for the US market were on board the Italian passenger ship ‘Andrea Doria’. The ship sank after a collision with the passenger ship ‘Stockholm’ off the misty coast of Nantucket – however, this accident took place in July 1956, well after the end of production of the Aurelia Spider. Even the assumption that instead 50 copies of the successor model Aurelia B24 Convertible with higher windscreen, crank windows and fabric roof were sunk in ocean could not be confirmed to date, neither by Lancia experts, nor by wreck divers. It is certain that aboard of the ‘Andrea Doria’ the concept study Chrysler Norseman sank in the floods – a concept car drawn by Virgil Exner and built at Ghia in Italy.

As part of Bonhams ‘The Quail Lodge’ auction, a very nice copy of the Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider America now comes under the hammer. According to available documents, it was first delivered to an Italian owner in July 1955. At that time the car wore both paint and leather in grey. The first owner wanted to use this Spider in the Mille Miglia and mounted temporarily additional lights at the front for this purpose. But he took distance from his initiative after he landed in Naviglio Grande Canal near Milan while making night-time highspeed excercises. The car took little damage, however, the donor of its owner did. Nevertheless he and his family kept the Lancia until the 1990s and then sold it to Fausto Cammarata from Florence. He opted for a visual and technical refreshment of the Spider, in which the original engine and gearbox stayed in the car. This restoration was refreshed by the following owner in the mid-2000s, before the car changed hands in 2008 to its current owner. He also bought a rare powerkit from Nardi with bigger carburetors, so the engine is well in juice. Today, Aurelia B24, especially in the Spider version, are very sought after. Therefore, Bonhams expects a hammer price between 1,000,000 and 1,300,000 US$.

Images: Bonhams