In the 1950s , Italy ’s figure maestro , Pinin Farina , changed the form of automotive architecture while beat up fresh patronage for his thrive carrozzeria . Here ’s the story of the spectacular show car – the 1955 Lancia Florida – that touched off a general styling revolution with an influence you could still see today .
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The Lancia Florida is now some 50 years aloof , so its colossal import may not be fully appreciated by today ’s stylus - witting beholder . Yet few conception studies offer such a clear - cut example of a truly new conformation .
There was nothing like the Florida in Pinin Farina ’s early employment , and the maestro sure as shooting did n’t copy it from any of his rivals in Turin , London , Milan , or Detroit .
When he sprang his surprisal on the mankind at the Turin Salone dell’Automobile in the spring of 1955 , everyone was unprepared . And no one could comprehend at that moment how much the Florida would influence the artistry of automobile design in years to fall .
If that sounds like an exaggeration , it ’s not . With the Florida , Farina conjure farewell to " monolithic " shapes and said hello to a new rule : body growth by symmetrical apposition of curved panel .
Look at it this way : If older cars were sculpt , as if hewn from a lump of Henry Clay , the Florida was just the opponent . It was make like a star sign of card , each card preformed to a certain aesthetic concept . The starting tip was not a solid object but merely a aerofoil .
The Florida was remarkably light for its time . The major theme was shape , with a near - total absence seizure of decoration . Horizontal vehemence was provided by the beltline , which pick up from the front fenders and load into the high-pitched rearward fender , blending with the backwards chimneysweep of the C - post .
Further strengthening the horizontal motif was a full - length tabloid - metal flexure just above the wheel cutouts . A hardtop coupe build in blade , the Lancia Florida also featured a wraparound windshield and " dogleg " A - mail , prompted no doubt by the contemporary U.S. styling fad initiate by General Motors .
The grille was not new , being merely a variation on the flattened oval that Farina was using on so many Ferraris . Headlamps were domiciliate within the grille frame , with smaller auxiliary lamps recessed into the front fender lead .
In dimension , the Lancia Florida was perfect for its prison term . The visibility was recollective and sleek , and rearward deck duration was sufficient for full visual Libra with the hood , thereby give supernumerary stress to the auto ’s static 50/50 unladen weight distribution .
The shallow nursery and big wheel may look dated to forward-looking heart . However , those wheel – shod with Michelin X 165 - 400 tires – seemed smaller than expected for a 104.3 - in - wheelbase car in 1955 , and the absence of fixed atomic number 5 - posts countermine the dispirited roof , giving a definite buoyancy to the inside . The prototype was originally finished in two - tone paint , with white on the roof and decklid and glum blue angel everywhere else .
How was this amazing fomite create ? Learn more about the Lancia Florida ’s design on the next page .
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1955 Lancia Florida Design
We experience for sure that the 1955 Lancia Florida was plan by Pinin Farina himself . He worked on it with a staff of no more than 10 draftsmen and modelers at a fourth dimension when his entire work force numbered 340 and annual body yield was only about 2,500 .
His closest collaborator in those day was probably Francesco Martinengo , director of Design , Research , and Quality Control . He had bring together Pinin Farina in 1952 , leaving his post at Stabilimenti Farina ( which closed its doors shortly after ) , where he had been since completing his schooling in 1934 .
A Lancia physical body was a raw for the Florida . The carrozzeria was already handling series yield of the Aurelia B-20 GT coupe and B-24 spider .
What ’s more , the appearance of the standard Aurelia sedan , enter in 1950 , was already quite date . Some call it odd . Actually , the Florida was nothing less than a proposal to Lancia for a new model , and it come at exactly the right time .
On April 2 , 1955 , Lancia hired a fresh technological director named Antonio Fessia , who wanted to effect prompt changes in the product line . Then 54 , he had experience going back to 1925 in both the aeronautic and automotive incision of Fiat .
In 1946 , he designed a front - bicycle - drive category car for Caproni that became the basis for the Lancia Flavia of 1960 . He had also worked on bike engines for Ducati and was a consultant to Pirelli until Fiat fetch him back and put him in charge of engine room at its Heilbronn industrial plant in Germany .
Fessia fell in love with the Florida . So did Gianni Lancia , the son of the founder , who was then head for the hills the patronage – and would ultimately run it into the ground with his careless spending .
Lancia want the Florida , but it had to have four doors . consequently , Fessia go to work on a new bod for the car that would before long become the product Flaminia .
Pinin Farina had built the Florida coupe on the received Aurelia chassis . Although the high-pitched - volume models employed building block construction , Lancia also made a separate Aurelia GT platform available for low - volume app with customs bodywork . This chassis was outstanding in many ways .
Notable was its mellow - performance V-6 engine design by Francesco de Virgilio , who had joined Lancia in 1939 and after became one of Vittorio Jano ’s closest cooperator . Jano was Lancia ’s principal engineer from 1937 to 1955 , and he was as brilliant an innovator as Vincenzo Lancia himself .
Front dangling was by the firm ’s patented slip - column system , with enclosed coil spring and integral hydraulic shock absorbers . At the backside were a de Dion axle and semi - elliptic leaf springs .
But still , a four - threshold variant was require . proceed on to the next page to discover about its creation .
1955 Lancia Florida Four-Door
It did n’t take long for Pinin Farina to develop a four - doorway version of the 1955 Lancia Florida design . It was ready in September 1955 , still on the same short - wheelbase political platform .
The windscreen stem was moved forward and the hood correspondingly shortened to make room for the rear door . headlight were relocated from the grill to the fenders , with the parking light like a shot below . A Ferrari - like gentle wind soap seem on the hood , and the A - posts were straightened to vertical , still with a wrapped windscreen .
Like the coupe , the four - door Florida was pillarless . Doors were center - opening , and Farina came up with a new musical arrangement to make up for the lack of B - posts . When closed , the back door lock into the fronts , and all doors also latched on the sill .
Frameless sideglass precluded any roof - mounted threshold attachment points . Lancia had some misgiving about this placement , so the Flaminia emerge as a pillared saloon with full window frames and conventional front - hinge rear doors .
The Flaminia was build on a 113 - column inch wheelbase . superpower was supplied by the largest 2.5 - liter ( 152 - three-dimensional - inch ) interlingual rendition of the Aurelia V-6 , detuned to 102 HP . by nature it inherited the Aurelia ’s front - drive transaxle , thus keeping tooling costs within strict limits .
The de Dion rearward temporary removal was retained , but Fessia take leave wildly from Lancia recitation by going to a new front suspension design with upper and low A - arms and coil springs inclined at about 20 academic degree from vertical .
Several major manufacturers had noticed the cardinal styling change correspond by the original Lancia Florida and began blab out to Pinin Farina about doing something standardized . What he did was sell a scaled - down reading of the basic Flaminia pattern intended to go for engines of 1.5 - 2.0 liters ( 91 - 121 Criminal Investigation Command ) .
It appeared in quick succession at British Motor Corporation in 1958 ( Wolseley 15/60 , Austin A-55 Cambridge , MG Magnette Mark III , Morris Oxford Series IV , and Riley 4/68 ) , at Fiat in 1959 ( 1800 and 2100 ) , and at Peugeot in 1960 ( for the 404 ) . The Gallic and Italian car stayed with big horizontal grilles . Austin and Morris used less daring ace , while the Riley and Wolseley had narrower , more traditional , upright - bar treatments .
Pronounced rear buffer " fins " appear on the British cars , which also had horizontal chrome clay sculpture running back from headlamp center stratum and curved downward in the rearward door expanse . More minor blades deck the Peugeot , while the Fiats ' flanks were square .
The Florida was already influential , but Pinin Farina had still further plans for this aim . proceed on to the next varlet for details .
1955 Lancia Florida’s Future
With the income from the sale of the Florida / Flaminia innovation to other automakers , Farina could have judged his commercial rewards from the Florida image as more than acceptable . But his society was engross in a rapid expansion syllabus by this time , and was thus aggressively try manufacturing contracts . Farina had big plans for the 1955 Lancia Florida ’s future .
In 1955 , the firm had purchased farming in Grugliasco , a suburb of Turin , and its unexampled yield middle was work there before the last of 1958 . This content had to be put to use as quickly as potential . meet the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider ( of which 27,000 were finally bring about ) was a good start , but it was only a start .
To drum up more business , Pinin Farina made yet another tar to Lancia with the Florida II , a two - threshold coupe build in 1957 on a short - wheelbase version of the Flaminia platform . For him , it marked a return to the original Florida concept .
The grown difference this time was that he had a production model as a starting pointedness . Lancia O.K. the Florida II and , with a few changes , it entered production in 1958 as the Flaminia coupe . Lancia insisted on a steeper windshield roue , framed door glass , door vent window , and a large air scoopful , the main limiting to the introductory purpose .
Built on a 108.3 - inch wheel - understructure , the Flaminia coupe weigh 3,175 Irish pound , and this plus an locomotive engine uprated to 119 horsepower raised top pep pill from the sedan chair ’s 99 mph to 111 mph .
Pinin Farina built 5,235 Flaminia coupes over a nine - year period of time , and some of them came to America . ( The Florida II epitome serve for years as the maestro ’s personal car . ) The Flaminia saloon was discontinued at the terminal of 1963 after production of nearly 3,300 unit , including 600 “ late ” models equipped with a 2.8 - litre , 125 - horsepower version of the V-6 .
Pinin Farina choke in 1968 . Lancia was ingest by the Fiat conglomerate in 1969 , after 10 year as part of the Italcementi chemical group . The link between Lancia and the Pininfarina society ( renamed in the other sixties ) are no longer as nigh as they once were , but the collaboration is still live .
As for the Florida line , it made a strong return in the Pininfarina design for the production Fiat 130 coupe of 1971 , and you may see traces of it in the eighties Peugeot 505 . It has determine countless designers all over the macrocosm . In particular , it ’s present in some Jaguar , Rolls - Royce / Bentley , BMW , Ford , Nissan , and Volvo models .
A milestone in the evolution of auto invention , the Florida stands as one of Pinin Farina ’s heavy single exertion . And turn over his many other masterworks , that ’s saying a lot .
