the "Lancia" 308 QV

Oh yes Alberto.. I had the first type without cat, and (in my opinion) with the better looks of the first series. Same color, but with the fabulous black leather interior of Poltrona Frau. Never-ever "sat" better behind a steering wheel. Really smooth and powerful engine, sounds marvellous. I used the car during my first Alfa Romeo racing year for pulling the trailer and the Giulia Super on it. As if you were just transporting a sack of potatoes in the trunk, so easy it pulled in the hills of Spa Franchorchamps.

Everything about this car is great: style, looks, sounds, comfort, performance. Well, exept for the FWD.. I owned the car for some 12 years, sold it a coupe of years ago due to lack of time, accumulating technical issues and getting a 156 GTA. I still regret it, though..

 

The Lancia Thema 8.32 was an interesting project from the FIAT group.

The thinking was to make their own "Q"-car in the same manner as BMW's M5 (Back then, the BMW M5 in E28/E34 guise barely looked any different from any other 5 series but went like a rocket ship, these days M5's are far more obvious due to owners no longer wanting to have their cars mistaken for "lesser" models), and make a more mundane Lancia a bit more exotic.

The engine was loosely based on the 308 QV engine, except that it it didn't have the flat plane crank, it had smaller valves, the firing order was changed from the 308's and it produced less power.

The 8.32 had a couple of problems though:

1) The V8 lump up front made the car a tad nose heavy due the fact that it sat ahead of the front suspension. This resulted in the chassis suffering from a lot more understeer than any of its rivals, and being front wheel drive, there wasn't much you could do about it. This wasn't a problem for straight line performance, but on a twisty road it was not what was required in that market sector.

2) The cars performance failed to match that of BMW's M5, in fact, performance-wise, it's closest BMW rival was the more "mundane" M535i, and even against BMW's everyday 5 series, the 8.32 still lost out in the handling stakes.

3) The Lancia Thema 8.32 had a much closer rival than the BMW. It was a car that was cheaper than the 8.32, a car whose performance was a match for the 8.32, and a car whose handling was much better that the 8.32 - And that car was the Lancia Thema 2.0 16v Turbo!

The 2.0L Turbo straight four weighed a lot less that the Ferrari based V8, and so the car understeered less, making the car much easier to coax through the bends at high speed. On the same stretch of seriously twisty road, the 8.32 would struggle to keep up with a 2.0L turbo version, and it's driver would have to work much harder.

It may sound as though I'm bashing the Lancia Thema 8.32, finding reasons to put it down just for the fun of it. The fact of the matter is though, the 8.32 was never as good as the theory suggested it would be!

The chassis balance was too upset by the heavy engine up front, the performance didn't match (let alone beat), the best that Germany could offer, the service builds were much higher than they were for the the 2.0L turbo version, and not many people wanted to pay the asking price, just to have a Ferrari-based engined car that didn't look any different to every other Lancia Thema and was going to lose tens of thousands in depreciation.

The Lancia Thema 8.32 was in reality, a bit of a crazy idea from the FIAT group, who should really have realised during the prototype/testing stage that it just wasn't going to work!

In true, crazy Italian fashion though, they were not put off and cracked on regardless! And that's why you have to love the 8.32! - Somebody said: "Why don't we try putting a Ferrari V8 into a Thema body?", and somebody else said: "Why not? - Let's do it!".

And let's face facts here: More often than not, it's the crazy things in life that make you smile the most!

 

All true. Add also the fact that the Thema wasn't the most inspiring looking car Lancia ever produced either didn't help...

 

+1

Not a seller on our shores either. I don't recall if it was even allowed Into Canada , but I have seen a few. It was easily mistaken for a hyandai "stellar" back then.

 

Okay, true, handling and steering precision wasn't great. But the trip from Holland to France and back was more energising (that is, for me !) than the holiday in between.

As far as "character" is concerned: the other previous mentioned cars were never-ever a match for that superb, charismatic, all-Italian saloon with one of the finest sounding engines mankind has produced until now !

 

The Thema Turbo could also be tuned to produce the same or even more hp output than the 8.32 with ease.

The looks, sound and interior were a lot nicer in the 8.32 though. And it had a RETRACTABLE WING, man!!

 

Yeah. But nót when having to replace the "driver-side" exhaust manifold. Ask me how I know..

 

there a have been a couple ferrari sedans based on the 456GT along with the shooting break version not sold to mere mortals.

also this wonderful concept in 80's 1980 Ferrari Pinin Four-Door Sedan Concept up for Grabs

 

I believe at least one F-Chatter (in Canada, if memory serves) owns one, or did. I'm pretty sure he still has it, and he posted about it here previously.

 

What kind of things does the car need? From the photos it looks well kept.

 

It's a pretty good looking sedan, nonetheless. Nice work, Albert.

Beau LeBlanc

 

Just in the 60K or 80K (can't see it clearly) kilometers ?! That's not very much, and the car looks like it did even much less. I really love it !!

I knew of two cars with well over 250.000 kilometers that I could not outrun with (at the time) my fresh 30K kilometer engine. In the appr. 12 years I had my 8.32 the only technical trouble I ever had was a dead battery. Letting the engine thoroughly warm up and regular maintanance payed off. Either they are pretty well built or I was very lucky ?!

 

Apart from the F136 in the Maserati QP.

 

Old top gear clips on the car:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLfWJ5qfqQc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7A_fjQ_8pA

 

I always thought they were a cool car. Not the best looking and not the best performing from what I've read. But still very cool. And hearing the acceleration sound is GREAT. Love it.

 

Fully agree. I had a 2.0 turbo 16 that was a blast. Wanted to upgrade to an 8.32 until I drove it.. Sounded great but that was all and it was a whale in a corner and couldn't get the power down in a straight line.

By the way, it wasn't a 308 but a 328 engine, hence the 8.32

 

Peter, I have to correct You on that one. The 8.32 was indeed a 308 QV based engine with 2927ccm displacement. The "32" designation refers to the number of valves.

I have owned one of these for 13 years now and can concur that it's a fantastic car in many ways but not a racer by any standard. It is a pure glider for well suited gentlemen with an impressively exclusive leather and burlwood interior. The attention to detail on this interior has to be inspected to fully understand. The sound,feel and exclusivity is what defines this car.

 

valves are smaller than the qv? how much smaller?