Classic pearls of the future - Lancia Thema 8.32 (Ferrari)
12/22/2014
Sports sedans have always been popular. As early as the 1960s, Alfa Romeo (with the Giulia TI Super) and Ford (with the Lotus Cortina) offered corresponding vehicles, and in the following decades there were always opportunities for performance-hungry car buyers blessed with young talent to set themselves apart from others with more power. If necessary, tuners helped out and installed the V8 engine of a Porsche 928 in a VW Golf, for example.
At Lancia, however , this was available ex works and in series production. In the second half of the 1980s, they decided to transplant the engine from the Ferrari 308 GTB/GTS Quattrovalvole into the front end of the Giugiaro-designed Lancia Thema. There it drove the front wheels with 215 hp in the ECE version and 205 hp in the detoxified US-83 version, as the Lancia Thema shared the same front-wheel drive platform with the Alfa Romeo 164, the Saab 9000i and the Fiat Chroma.
The equipment with leather seats and all kinds of comfort was also adapted to the noble engine and, last but not least, the price, which initially amounted to DM 72,600 in Germany and then rose to over 80,000, while the car could be bought in Switzerland for 69,100 francs, which at least corresponded to two Thema i.e. saloons that hardly differed externally from the Thema 8.32, as it was called to refer to the eight cylinders and 32 valves.
However, apart from the type plate, there was one major difference to the slower variants: the electrically extendable wing in the trunk lid.
This was intended to improve the driving characteristics of the saloon, which was now capable of almost 240 km/h. Compared to the competition, e.g. the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16, the price was not so outlandish, after all, the Stuttgart model only offered four cylinders and significantly less space and luxury.
Naturally, the car magazines were all over the hot newcomer and Automobil Revue tested both the ECE and the US-83 versions. Although the lower-compression catalytic converter version only lacked 10 hp according to the manufacturer, the acceleration times differed dramatically. The ECE version tested in 1986 sped from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.8 seconds, while the catalytic converter version driven in 1988 took considerably longer at 7.6 seconds. Interestingly, however, the colleagues at Auto Motor und Sport magazine were not any sportier with the "faster" variant, as they also recorded 7.6 seconds for the standard sprint and a top speed of 237 km/h. This was slightly faster than the ARC. They were therefore slightly faster than the AR with 236 and 232 km/h in the two measurements.
But the pure measured values were not the decisive factor anyway. The heart in the form of the Ferrari engine was the decisive factor for general enthusiasm. "It's a fresh, brisk sports engine that revs with vehemence above 7000," said the obviously impressed AMS testers about the seductive engine in the Lancia.
"The Lancia Ferrari's ability to track is sensational for a sedan; from a standstill, it pulls away like a real sports car, with the wheels slightly "dragging" over several meters," the AR test team commented.
However, the not quite balanced comfort was criticized, while the fuel consumption of around 14 liters was considered reasonable at the time.
The Thema 8.32 also underwent model upgrades during the transition from Series 1 to Series 2 in 1988, but the fast version was discontinued in 1992. By then, 3284 vehicles had left the factory, making the Lancia Ferrari significantly rarer than the BMW M3 E30, Mercedes Benz 190E 2.3-16 and the like.
This rarity is not (yet) worth its weight in gold, Classic Data currently quotes €15,000 to €17,000 for a condition 2 example, but the fast saloon can also be bought for considerably less money, although savings at the time of purchase could pay off with not insignificant follow-up costs.
But the car will always be a one-off, because there has never been a Lancia with a Ferrari engine before or since, and under the current regime, a heart from Maranello would probably have to be transplanted into a Chrysler, and who would want to do that ...
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