Lost & found
After travelling around Europe, a rare 1938 Lancia Aprilia with four-seater tourer body by Dutch coachbuilder Van Rijswijk has made its way back to The Netherlands. The car was found in the stable beside a French château, where it had been for at least 25 years without moving a wheel.
Pre-war car specialist Juri Castricum heard about the Lancia while he was visiting France and decided to go and have a look. There he learned that the château’s owner, an elderly Dutch solicitor, purchased the Aprilia as a project in 1971 back in his home country, and then took it with him when he moved to France. The Lancia had been gathering dust and cobwebs ever since, and had furniture stacked on top of it. The owner didn’t know much about the car, other than that it was supposedly bodied in The Netherlands.
Castricum was intrigued and took ownership of the car, and after further research he soon found out that Van Rijswijk of The Hague was the coachbuilder responsible. He also discovered that the Aprilia had almost certainly graced the Van Rijswijk display at the 1938 Amsterdam motor show, together with a Hudson. Dutch Lancia concessionaire Lagerweij, also of The Hague, must have had close ties with the coachbuilder because it had an Artena by the firm on display at the same show. A period clipping tells us that the Aprilia was finished in black with pearl-grey inserts and with a light-grey leather interior and hood. It is now in primer, suggesting that a restoration was once started.
Although the old Dutch logbook is still with the car, Castricum has not been able to trace the Aprilia’s history prior to 1952. He has managed to find a few old photographs and traced some of the Lancia’s later keepers, but hopes that a new owner will carry on the voyage of discovery. “It’s complete and the engine runs,” he says, “but it needs full restoration. The 2021 Dutch concours d’élégance at Paleis Soestdijk will have a class for Dutch coachbuilt cars, and it would be fantastic to see this there.”