More About James May's Lancia Gamma Coupe
Beautiful but flawed. The car's alright, too.
The Lancia Gamma reminds me of one of those Samsung Galaxy phones that, at some point during its usage, would randomly explode. Like most Italian cars it was beautiful, maybe even magical, but like most Italian cars, it was flawed.
Its steering pump was the issue. It wasn't connected to the crank pulley like most cars. It was instead connected to the timing belt, so when placed under the strain of, let's say, full lock. It would snap. And its under-engineered aluminium engine would fail.
The Gamma Berlina Saloon
It was 1976 when it was first rolled into showrooms, and with its 2.5-litre boxer engine it could haul its 2,850 lbs around quite easily with its 138hp. This low weight equated to adequate braking and handling, as well. Unfortunately, this wouldn't last too long, as they suffered from something that plagues the minds of petrol heads all over the world: rust.
The Gamma Coupe
The Pininfarina designed body would quite quickly succumb to oxidation due to the quality of sheet metal and painting by the Italian marque. But towards the end of its production in 1984, quality would improve and the later models were much less prone to rust.
The big question is, though... will it survive the Scottish Grand Tour with James May at the helm? Let me know what you think in the comments.
The simple interior of the Gamma. Very yellow..
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Comments (10)
I just don't like them. Lancia made so many much more interesting cars!
They did! You're right.
The Delta Integrale, the Monte Carlo... the 037...
James May makes biased press and exaggerates to add interest to a boring blog!
I think we all know the shortfall of the Gamma, but he forgot to mention, it was corrected, and no longer an issue, the Gamma generally was not that bad on rust compared to other cars of the time, there are many well kept examples with little or no rust at all after 45 years, as for the mention about the Beta servo problem, I experienced this on my Thema whilst braking at 100 mph the brake went on but never came off because of something coming adrift inside the servo, by the time I had stopped the disc's were cherry red and the pads were on fire, apart from this it was fast handled well and was one of my favorite cars to drive,
It was a disaster!
www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a27785243/vintage-lancia-gamma-for-sale/
My Gamma Coupe is one of my favourite cars, not just for it's looks but for it's handling, steering precision and turbine smooth, torquey motor, in every way, so much better than an Alfa GTV of the same age. I don't have the GTV anymore but I kept the Lancia and I'll never sell it. My wipers failed once on a five year old Corolla, but not on the Lancia which is an odd mix of Fiat Uno and Mercedes Benz build quality.
Was it the Beta Coupe that the brakes would fail if you slammed on them
They decided on the beta that the brake servos caused the issue. So they logically got rid of them rather than update them.