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Bertone Kayak - Booted out

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Created on December 17, 2025

Text:

Paul Krüger

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Archiv

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - arbitrary or visionary? Without the Lancia emblem, the Kayak would also fit in with the later design language of some other manufacturers

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - Shorter, wider and lower than the Kappa sedan, it looks much more muscular

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - emphatically low rear with only a hint of a step and wide, low rear lights

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - contrasts: long, angular front and short, rounded rear

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - The price of the front-wheel drive platform: Nuccio Bertone found the front overhang too long

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - Powered by the 175 hp five-cylinder engine of the Lancia Kappa

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - Veiled view: The headlights behind the radiator grille only become visible when the lights are switched on

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - design drawing, which envisages significantly longer and lower doors

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Bertone Kayak (1995) - Design drawing: The doors now correspond approximately to the later car, rear lights and exhaust trims still differ slightly

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Lancia Kappa (1994) - the technical basis for the Bertone Kayak

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Lancia Kappa (1994) - Transparent drawing

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Lancia Kappa Coupé (1997) - in-house design under the direction of Enrico Fumina

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Lancia Kappa Coupé (1997) - the rear fender edges quote the Flaminia Coupé

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Summary

With the Kayak, Bertone wanted to return the Fiat subsidiary Lancia, which was slowly drifting into arbitrariness, to its former glory. The technology and design language were deliberately kept close to series production so that the coupé version of the Lancia Kappa could go into production. However, Lancia ultimately preferred its own design.

This article contains the following chapters

Foreign role model
Own creation preferred

Estimated reading time: 3min

Preview (beginning of the article)

What exactly the silver coupé had to do with an Arctic paddle boat was left to the imagination of the show visitors. In contrast to Bella or Slalom , the press release at the presentation did not explain the origin of the name. Perhaps it was simply supposed to be something with a "K", as the Lancia Kappa - which, like Beta, Gamma or Delta, was only inscribed with the corresponding Greek letter on the body - formed the technical basis. Or rather, it should have. Because at the 1995 Geneva Motor Show, the Bertone Kayak was still on display as an immobile maquette. However, the silver-grey two-door model was also appealing as a model that could not be driven. It was not only the sheet-metal competitors, who considered the Lancia to be the most interesting design of the show, but also the press who had words of praise for it - whereby the praise consisted primarily of the fact that the Kayak looked pleasingly little like Bertone, whose previous designs had all been considered "rather freaky" by the Automobil Revue. As if that wasn't enough, Max Stoop praised "completely calm lines of the kind usually attributed to Pininfarina" in his trade fair report.

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