Vincenzo Lancia

Biography

Vincenzo Lancia was born in Fobello, Piedmont, on 24 August 1881. As a teenager he kept the books for Giovanni Battista Ceirano's bicycle business. In 1900, aged 19, he became chief inspector and test driver at Fiat.

He also raced for Fiat and scored his first success in 1900, in the second race Fiat entered. He led the opening lap of the 1906 French Grand Prix at Le Mans, and that year he won the Gold Cup in Milan in a Fiat 28-40. On 27 November that year he and his friend Claudio Fogolin founded Lancia & C. in Turin, and their first car, the Tipo 51, later named Alfa, was built in 1907.

In 1913 the Theta became the first European production car sold with a full electrical system as standard equipment. The Lambda followed in 1922 and stayed in production until 1931; it was Lancia's first car with a monocoque body, and its front wheels were independently sprung on 'sliding pillars'. In 1930 Lancia helped fund Battista Farina's new coachbuilding firm, Carrozzeria Pinin Farina. He died of a heart attack in Turin on 15 February 1937, shortly before the Aprilia went into full production.