Lancia Fulvia

Start with what the Lancia Fulvia is: a 4-door saloon (Berlina) / 2-door coupé (Coupé) / 2-door fastback coupé (Sport) with Petrol engine, built from 1963 to 1976, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Piero Castagnero at Centro Stile Lancia (Berlina and Coupé) / Ercole Spada at Zagato (Sport). 335,536 were built.

The story

The Lancia Fulvia (Tipo 818) is a car produced by Lancia between 1963 and 1976. Named after the Via Fulvia, a Roman road leading from Tortona to Turin, it was introduced at the Geneva Motor Show in 1963 and manufactured in three variants: Berlina 4-door saloon, 2-door Coupé, and Sport, an alternative fastback coupé designed and built by Zagato on the Coupé floorpan.

Fulvias are noted for their role in motorsport history, including a 1972 win of the International Rally Championship. Road & Track described the Fulvia as "a precision motorcar, an engineering tour de force". Total production number of the Fulvia berlina was 192,097 cars, of the Fulvia Coupé 139,797 cars, and of the Fulvia Sport 7,102 cars.

What is underneath

The engine is Petrol engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Drive goes through a 4-speed manual / 5-speed manual. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 2480 mm (Berlina 1963–69) / 2500 mm (Berlina 1969–72) / 2330 mm (Coupé, Sport). These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.

Its place in the line

In the Lancia line-up the Lancia Fulvia has a clear place: it replaced the Lancia Appia; it handed the line to the Lancia Beta / Lancia Trevi (1980–1984). The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Aston Martin DB5, the Maserati Quattroporte, the Buick Riviera. Nearby in the Lancia catalogue sit the Lancia 037 and the Lancia 2000.

Owning one today

MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Lancia Fulvia has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.