UPDATE 2/14/12 – The auction ended with bidding at $9,400 reserve not met.
If you were in the market for a luxury car back in the sixties, you had quite a few options. There were a slew of luxo barges from the likes of Cadillac and Lincoln. Or you could go with something a little more upscale from Rolls Royce. For those that wanted to be different though, there was always Lancia. With their unique Italian designs and silky smooth V6 engines, they were sure to stand out. This 1962 Lancia Flaminia Berlina is a fine example of their luxury offerings and it is a rare sight to see on our shores. Find it here on eBay with bidding at $5,600 reserve not met and a very optimistic BIN price of $20,000.
The exterior may have been penned by Pininfarina, but Lancia actually built these bodies in house. That meant that the build quality was exceptional. This particular car looks great in the photos, but remember that automobiles always look better in pictures then in reality. The beautiful lighting and scenery really help this car’s case. There is some rust lurking on the underside of the doors and in the undercarriage though. The seller does provide plenty of photos so you can see the problem areas.
Inside things look immaculate and stock all except for an auxiliary gauge mounted under the dash. The seats have already been reupholstered, but the headliner is claimed to be original. Luckily there are no apparent needs here so we would just leave it as is and enjoy.
The Berlina shared its drive train with the Coupe so power is provided by this 2.8 liter V6. Power was down a little over the Coupe though with only 128 horsepower on tap. You can utilize that power well though because this luxury car is equipped with a manual transmission.
These are very unique and beautiful cars which provide the most affordable route to Flaminia ownership. With that said, the sedans are also the least desirable of the family and for good reason. With the Pininfarina built Coupe, Touring constructed GT, and Zagato produced Sport, the Berlina was amongst some tough company. Still, a good one can be a joy to drive. We just hope the reserve price is set realistically here because the BIN price is closer to what a perfect car would normally go for. Perhaps these Italian luxury sedans are on their way up?
Kind of reminds me of something built in Russia back then.
This is a very pretty car. I lived in Paris in the early sisties, and the French always commented on how much it looked like Peugeot 404. Same designer!
Anyone know what he means about the KM’s?
Excellent photos. For anything close to the BIN price though, it would need to be in a lot better shape. There’s a fair amount of work to be done here.
He’s talking about the mileage. Kilometers not miles.
Wonderful setting & pics. I have seem this sellers similar pics in previous listings with different cars. The Pacific NW is a wonderful place—could not get a much better backdrop.These Lancias were extremely well designed and made, and this one would have been one of the highest of the high-end sedans (= ‘berlina’) available in Italy back in the 1960s. It would have been comparable to a Lincoln or Cadillac in the US. Still, it would have been smaller than the US cars because Euro vehicles were almost always significantly smaller than similar-use vehicles in the US. The V6 engine in this Flaminia is a descendant of the first-ever V6, which was designed in the late 1940s for the 1951 Lancia Aurelia. It really set the stage for a compact, multi-cylinder engine that could go (sideways) into FWD cars that needed more than 4 cylinders. But of course this Lancia has its V6 mounted properly, i.e., longitudinally. The Lancia V6 has hemispheric combustion chambers with overhead valves opened by rocker arms. The engine does not have overhead cams. Lancia used it in both their cooking sedans and also in their sporting Aurelia and Flaminia models, including the wonderful Zagato-bodied Flaminia. It was a small engine in terms of displacement, starting out at around 1.8 litres (like the small Mazda V6), then 2.5 litres, and ending up around 2.8 litres as in this car. That’s small for the US, but large for Europe. The build quality of all of these Lancias was superb, and this plus the variety and excellence of Lancia design made it one of the top brands in Italy until it was acquired by Fiat, after which it became just a minor branch of that industrial giant, unfortunately. That said, this particular Lancia model does not excite me or interest me nearly as much as an Aurelia GT or B24 or a Flaminia Zagato would. gavin: KMs = kilometers. 1 KM = about 0.62 mile.
My Love affairs have always been Citroen DS`s.This Lancia was a veryexpensive car in Holland but oh boy ,it was chic !Pictures don`t do justice to this car, it is a very large car with so much room inside. We would have from time to time 4 boys side by side on the back bench. The car sounded different than ( in those days) anything else.It was a fine Italian machine, but not a car for the Netherlands.So many good memories, imagine ,I was 15 when my uncle owned this, now I will be 65 and still love my DS. I am just sitting here and dreaming.Thank you for putting this on the web.Regards to all my Auto friends, Bastiaan Van Der Hoek, Vancouver Canada.
@Commlender and @Dolphin it really just seems that he felt it necessary to switch the 3 to a 9 in the KM reading… the conversion makes no sense in either direction, when converting to or from KM and miles. He gives no reasoning for the statement. It’s
I have always had a soft spot for Flaminias. In 1964 as a boy, my parents took me on holiday to Sicily. My Father organised some trips to Syracuse, Catania, Palermo and most exciting of all Mount Etna. Our transport was a soft Grey Lancia Flaminia driven by a local Sicilian. I think I enjoyed the car ride more than almost anything else, except Mount Etna. This one looks as though plenty of work will be required. That kind of work that crawls out and bites you harder in the wallet than you ever thought it would, after you have bought it of course! But it is a lovely colour scheme and would be a rare and fascinating ride. As well as a joy to own.