Start with what the Lancia Thema is: a 4-door sedan (car) / saloon / 5-door station wagon with 2.0 L Fiat Twin Cam engine, built from 1984 to 2014, in the age of turbocharging and the first electronic engine management. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Giorgetto Giugiaro at Italdesign (saloon) / Pininfarina (station wagon).
The story
The Lancia Thema (Type 834) is an executive car produced by the Italian automaker Lancia between 1984 and 1994, and one of four cars to share the Type Four platform alongside the Alfa Romeo 164, Fiat Croma and Saab 9000. The Thema was first shown at the Turin Motor Show in 1984. The Thema was available as a saloon and as a station wagon.
The station wagon was designed and produced by Pininfarina. In February 2011, it was reported that the second generation of the Chrysler 300C, due for launch later that year, would be marketed as Lancia Thema in all European markets, except the UK and Ireland, which would retain the 300C nameplate. It was sold from 2011 to 2014.
What is underneath
The engine is 2.0 L Fiat Twin Cam engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 1150 –. Drive goes through a 5-speed manual transmission / manual / 4-speed ZF 4HP transmission / ZF 4HP automatic transmission / automatic. The wheelbase is 2660 mm. 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 Thema has a clear place: it replaced the Lancia Gamma; it handed the line to the Lancia Kappa; the factory was Fiat Mirafiori. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Ferrari Testarossa, the Toyota MR2, the Renault Espace. 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 Thema 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.