FUTURE PROOF
Sometimes it’s best to leave the past in the past says Horrell. Let’s see if that applies to Lancia...
On this page in I wrote a column about not going back
I was thinking about the moon as it was the th anniversary of Apollo The dozen people to have walked on its surface had exhibited bravery and steely minded commitment far beyond the compass of almost any other mortals They themselves were by far the most reliable and well proven element of the entire
tonne rocket they’d strapped themselves into And they were departing to a hostile black vacuum almost a quarter of a million miles beyond the possibility of rescue
Their only real time connection was a lowbandwidth radio signal carrying voices on a bed of interference and snowstormy black and white video For the whole planet Earth watching heart in mouth below them it vividly emphasised the distance and the peril of the enterprise
Spaceflight was initially about the power of nations and later about the value of science These days the principal qualification is wealth It’s led by the egos of hypercapitalists who place themselves way beyond the bounds of earthly institutions I guess Musk Bezos and Branson think that because enough people have given them enough money they’ve somehow earned a legitimacy equivalent to a nation state After they’ve gone up they’ll start
“LANCIA WILL BE RELAUNCHING AS A STELLANTIS ELECTRIC BRAND THIS YEAR”
taking fare paying space tourists and then those beautiful spectral images of Armstrong and Aldrin will be usurped by extraplanetary Instagrammers Getting those few into space will distract from improving the lives of the many on our home planet At which point we’ll surely wish humankind never went back
Now at what point will we wish Lancia never went back? Lancia will be relaunching as a Stellantis electric brand this year Its communication features shots of brutal Integrales and Stratoses winning rallies and beautiful Fifties Aurelias and super advanced Twenties Lambdas It was a company fit for the automotive equivalent of spaceflight
But spaceflight now is different from the Saturn V era and so is Lancia OK a few of today’s buyers might recall the rally cars and a small percentage of that small percentage are aware of the lovely Fulvias and a small percentage again will recall those origin classics that established Lancia as an aristocrat But basically Lancia is a dead brand The possibility exists that if a bunch of Stellantis designers and marketers want to build a startup brand they might do well to look for inspiration to the best of Lancia’s past But if the public then go off and start turning over the stones of Lancia’s living memory they’re as likely to find maggots as gems
Same with Jaguar Jaguar has won Le Mans and built epic saloons and sports cars That’s good inspiration for the people inside the Gaydon development hive But to people who haven’t spectated at classic car events the word Jaguar just as likely means a timeworn diesel XType Not a good association for when Jaguar tries a new liftoff in
TG’s megabrain Paul is one of the world’s most experienced car journalists. He single-handedly caused the microchip crisis after eating several thousand in a bid to boost his processing power