34 replies to this topic

[f1leal]

Was looking for some nice pictures of the Martini Lancia LC1 (group 6) car...Ricardo Patrese and Piercarlo Ghinzani were the drivers of this car...

[simonlewisbooks]

Try...
http://simonlewis.co...php?cPath=21_47

There are several featured both of Patrese and Ghinzani

Regards
Simon

[Henri Greuter]

Does anyone know what the shortcut LC stood for?
A Porsche fan told me it that for the LC2 in particular the meaning was very appropriate.

And exactly why did Lancia Martini all of a sudden quit the entire program after Silversone in early May'86?


Henri

[fausto]

If I remember well Lancia were not happy with the race format, they wanted more "Sprint" races (360 Kms long), the few that were introduced in 1986 weren't enough to keep them in...however, contrary to their own expectations, the car wasn't competitive also in the shorter races....

[simonlewisbooks]

Wasn't LC1 a retrospective type number which has been applied in recent years? At the time I can only recall the car being known by it's Barchetta nickname.

As for the LC2- I always assumed
L= Lancia
C= Group C
2 = ??? Maybe 2 marques? A Lancia & Ferrari co-production maybe?

Lancia always seemed to have a stellar line up of drivers in those days and plenty of raw speed but shocking reliability.

Simon Lewis
Transport Books
www.simonlewis.com

[Martin Krejci]

I always assumed that LC stood for L ancia (group) C and number of type built. I think the LC1 was used regularly only in 1983 when cars were converted to group C specs. In 1982 it was just Lancia Martini Spider.

As far as I know they left the series in 1986 because the Lancia racing activities were becoming too expensive and Lancia simply prefered rallye to group C endurance programme. I remember it was originally announced that Lancia will fill only four races but later appeared just twice during opening races.

[Henri Greuter]

About what LC2 stood for,

I had a friend who supported Porsche (I was in the Italian Corner) and he told me that as far as the results indicated: LC2 stood for:

Lost Case Too

if it came to describe Martini-Lancia's title bids.



Henri

[simonlewisbooks]

Originally posted by Martin Krejci

As far as I know they left the series in 1986 because the Lancia racing activities were becoming too expensive and Lancia simply prefered rallye to group C endurance programme. I remember it was originally announced that Lancia will fill only four races but later appeared just twice during opening races.

Wasn't this around the time Fiat rationalised it's competion policy which more or less meant Rallying for Lancia, Racing cars for Ferrari and Touring cars for Alfa - and never the twain shall meet. A bit like Ford later did by removing Aston Martin from Group C as they already had an in-house Gp C effort, and that was Jaguar.

Simon Lewis
Transport Books
www.simonlewis.com

[Mallory Dan]

Lancia C ompetition (or whatever the Italian term is) 2.

Shame they stopped the programme, but by early 86 they'd been going for 3 years, and hadn't ever looked like beating the Porsches consistently. Hadn't a test driver/engineer also been killed in a testing accident shortly before? I recall QS wrote at the time this had contributed to the cancellation too.

[subh]

This site has pictures of most of the cars that raced in that era, and absolutely comprehensive coverage of sports car racing in general:

http://www.racingspo.../photo_wcm.html

[fausto]

Originally posted by Mallory Dan
Lancia C ompetition (or whatever the Italian term is) 2.

..........Hadn't a test driver/engineer also been killed in a testing accident shortly before? I recall QS wrote at the time this had contributed to the cancellation too.

Yes, test driver Giacomo Maggi was killed while testing at La Mandria (nr. Turin) Fiat Group private test track....

[Rainer Nyberg]

Competizione...?

[MODE]

Focus on the Lancia LC1 with photos, interview (R.Patrese), story and technical infos :


http://www.gurneyfla...lc1photost.html

[boffin5]

There are excellent photos of the Lancia LC1 and LC2 in the latest gurneyflap.com website. One of the pictures of the LC2 has me puzzled. It shows the front coolant radiator, and right behind it are two big black ducts. They appear to duct air from a nose diffuser back, up and out alongside either side of the cockpit and then to the engine bay. Or, they could duct air from the same nose inlet that feeds the radiator, but I'm not sure what that would accomplish. I have been searching to verify that the air comes from a front diffuser, but haven't found anything.

[lanciaman]

Originally posted by Henri Greuter
About what LC2 stood for,

I had a friend who supported Porsche (I was in the Italian Corner) and he told me that as far as the results indicated: LC2 stood for:

Lost Case Too

if it came to describe Martini-Lancia's title bids.



Henri

Maybe a bit "lost" by then, but I was at the Glen in 1980, working for Pirelli, when former client Lancia mightily chuffed the Porsches and put away the Manufacturers' Championship at the 6 Hours.

Lancia drivers included Patrese, Heyer, Cheever, Albereto, Ghinzani and another I cannot recall. There were 3 factory cars and a Jolly Club Montecarlo/Scorpion.

My key responsibility was placing the Pirelli decals just so on all 4 corners of the cars, plus making sure we didn't run out of Bolla and ham sandwiches for media and dealers. I was able to place a nice ad with photos in the next Speed Sport News (24 hours from checkered flag to deadline) about race winners who triumphed thanks entirely to Pirelli rubber, thank you Giancarlo.

[simonlewisbooks]

In the early 1980s Lancia had a superb short film playing on their stand at the MOTOR SHOW which covered the Martini Lancia Beta Montecarlos in action durind the 1981 world sports car series.
Does anyone remember it and more to the point has anyone seen it since?
There can't have been many films made during this era, it just predates commercial videos and post-dates the kind of CASTROL/ESSO/SHELL Film unit offerings of the 50s-70s.
No doubt it's tucked away in the Fiat group archives somewhere....

[Arjan de Roos]

Originally posted by Henri Greuter
Does anyone know what the shortcut LC stood for?

Henri

Lancia Corse

[Bonde]

Boffin 5,

I wondered about that duct/fairing, too. Turns out it's just the left hand portion of the shroud behind the radiator that has been detached and shifted somewhat outboard in order to get access to something. Once re-installed it will fair in the front of the door area in the wheel well.

[flat-16]

Gilles Villeneuve and Walter Rohrl both campaigned Montecarlo Turbos on the Giro d'Italia. There was a link to some film footage on the Youtube thread, but it got pulled by Youtube...

I think I'd kill to have some video footage of the Giro... The sound of the turbocharged Dino V6s is something else! Trying to get any info on the Giro has proved impossible for me, so if anyone here can provide any information I'd be very grateful... Around 1973, the Abarth 030 raced in the Giro - it would be really something to see some film of the 030 in action :


Justin

[ghinzani]

The LC1s were converted to Group C junior (C2 as it was to become) for 83, driven by among others Laurarri. Surprised they didnt turn up again in 84 actually given the Italian teams recycling instincts.

Also the 1.4t turbo engine was rumoured to be on its way to F1 in 1980/81 with Toleman amonst others (also Arrows iirc).

[simonlewisbooks]

Originally posted by ghinzani


Also the 1.4t turbo engine was rumoured to be on its way to F1 in 1980/81 with Toleman amonst others (also Arrows iirc).

Never heard that one. Intriguing what this might have produced considering how good the broadly similar BMW 4 cyl turned out to be!
Perhaps the FIAT overlords decreed F1 should be for Ferrari and Lancia must stick to sports cars and rallying, as it did more overtly in later years (as did Ford with Jaguar and Aston Martin in Gp C) ?

[fausto]

Originally posted by ghinzani
The LC1s were converted to Group C junior (C2 as it was to become) for 83, driven by among others Laurarri. Surprised they didnt turn up again in 84 actually given the Italian teams recycling instincts.

Also the 1.4t turbo engine was rumoured to be on its way to F1 in 1980/81 with Toleman amonst others (also Arrows iirc).

In Italy circulated a rumour involving Lancia UK importer Heron, then involved in motorcycle GP racing....

[Henri Greuter]

Originally posted by lanciaman


Maybe a bit "lost" by then, but I was at the Glen in 1980, working for Pirelli, when former client Lancia mightily chuffed the Porsches and put away the Manufacturers' Championship at the 6 Hours.

Lancia drivers included Patrese, Heyer, Cheever, Albereto, Ghinzani and another I cannot recall. There were 3 factory cars and a Jolly Club Montecarlo/Scorpion.

My key responsibility was placing the Pirelli decals just so on all 4 corners of the cars, plus making sure we didn't run out of Bolla and ham sandwiches for media and dealers. I was able to place a nice ad with photos in the next Speed Sport News (24 hours from checkered flag to deadline) about race winners who triumphed thanks entirely to Pirelli rubber, thank you Giancarlo.

Lanciaman,

don't get me wrong: I weas a fan of the little Beta MonteCarlo's and enjoyed seeing them do so well in 1980, including winning the DRM with Hans Heyer. He doing such alsmost singlehandedly against a combined fleet of BMW's and Fords.

As much as I admired the 956 for coming along as it did and that I preferred coupes over spiders then (as well as now) I alos admired the LC1's ability to comete against the larger engined cars so well as it dit.
While I regretted that the LC2 in all its incarnations never managed to give the Porsches and the Jaguars a good scare in the races. I was a Lancia supporter in that era.
And I regretted that they pulled out in 1986 so sudden and without much of an explanation why and/or what, let alone that it was after so few decent results.

I don't carr too much for rallying anymore nowadays: Without Lancia, it is not rallying for me anymore.
Stratos, 037 and Delta S4, man I loved them!!!!



Henri

[simonlewisbooks]

Originally posted by fausto


In Italy circulated a rumour involving Lancia UK importer Heron, then involved in motorcycle GP racing....

And former constructors of the Trojan F1 car and most of the McLaren M8 customer cars.

[thecako]

On my website www.martini-racing.new.fr...........

[Henri Greuter]

Originally posted by simonlewisbooks


Never heard that one. Intriguing what this might have produced considering how good the broadly similar BMW 4 cyl turned out to be!
Perhaps the FIAT overlords decreed F1 should be for Ferrari and Lancia must stick to sports cars and rallying, as it did more overtly in later years (as did Ford with Jaguar and Aston Martin in Gp C) ?

I have heard that rumour too. In the case of Arrows, at that time they had someone who once had been with Lancia and/or Ferrari within their ranks. (I forgot his name, Audetto maybe? Anyway, I also remember to have read somewhere (Prüller GP Story) he was also involved in obtaining Pirelli tires for Arrows)

I have a bit of doubts if the Lancia 4-banger would have been capable of producing the same amount of horses as the BMw eventually did. Was it as rugged as the BMW?


Henri

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by Henri Greuter



I have heard that rumour too. In the case of Arrows, at that time they had someone who once had been with Lancia and/or Ferrari within their ranks. (I forgot his name, Audetto maybe? Anyway, I also remember to have read somewhere (Prüller GP Story) he was also involved in obtaining Pirelli tires for Arrows)

I have a bit of doubts if the Lancia 4-banger would have been capable of producing the same amount of horses as the BMw eventually did. Was it as rugged as the BMW?


Henri

Audetto and Patrese and Ceramche Pagnossin (or something similar) so plenty of Italian connections.

I dont know it could have made BMW power but it would have been a lot lighter and easier for the designer to package. Ultimately Toleman went with Hart (I would love to see a pic of the 80/81 Toleman F2 chassis'ed F1 engined mulletta) and Arrows carried on with DFVs. Were Lancia part of the Fiat group at that time? I know Alfa werent but had Lancia been subsumed at that time?

[lanciaman]

Originally posted by Henri Greuter



Lanciaman,

don't get me wrong: I weas a fan of the little Beta MonteCarlo's and enjoyed seeing them do so well in 1980, including winning the DRM with Hans Heyer. He doing such alsmost singlehandedly against a combined fleet of BMW's and Fords.

As much as I admired the 956 for coming along as it did and that I preferred coupes over spiders then (as well as now) I alos admired the LC1's ability to comete against the larger engined cars so well as it dit.
While I regretted that the LC2 in all its incarnations never managed to give the Porsches and the Jaguars a good scare in the races. I was a Lancia supporter in that era.
And I regretted that they pulled out in 1986 so sudden and without much of an explanation why and/or what, let alone that it was after so few decent results.

I don't carr too much for rallying anymore nowadays: Without Lancia, it is not rallying for me anymore.
Stratos, 037 and Delta S4, man I loved them!!!!



Henri

Henri,

With Lancia it was mostly about the lack of enough money, and in North America, it was also a matter of choosing inept US partners. I found the Italians great to work with-- charming, erudite, fun-- but they had gravely mistaken impressions of the US market and our automotive expectations. The Fiat and Lancia marketing efforts were always woefully underfunded, and in my opinion the American partners were more accustomed to hawking tarted up US tin than Fiats or Lancias. (I could tell you about the "Eager Beaver" Fiat 131 promotion insisted upon by Fiat NA's American CEO but it is still too embarrassing.)

Lancia and Fiat NA Italian management were frankly ill-informed about the high cost of American advertising and how much money it would take to create any market awareness; and for some reason they were not prepared to really push the Lancia competition heritage. I took that message on near singlehandedly and when I found that Toly Aruntunoff had entered his Stratos for Daytona 24 (in 1978, as I recall), I met with almost total disinterest from the men of Montvale, though they agreed to send me to Daytona for the event. (Toly's car was not set up well for the Daytona track and struggled as an amateur entrant.)

Soon after I moved on from Lancia to Pirelli, I was gratified to see the Montes entered in the Glen's 6 Hours and was even more pleased to be able to see them do so well. (I seem to remember there was some tinkering of the Group 5 regs that gave the Lancias parity, but don't remember the specifics-- it was after all nearly 30 years ago.)

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by thecako
On my website www.martini-racing.new.fr...........

Bravo!

http://martini.racin.../press_83_2.htm

"I will have a Martini aperitif and a MS cigarette please barman!" - Piercarlo extolling the benefits of a healthy sportsmans life.

[boffin5]

Bonde, yes, the left hand duct is detached to access something, but it still looks to me like these ducts are not fed by air from the radiator. Air for the radiator goes vertically up through it and exits in front of the windshield. The black ducts are routing air that comes either from above the nose splitter, along with the radiator air, or below it, in which case they would be the outlet for a nose diffuser. Would really like to know which.

[ghinzani]

Any pics of the converted lc1s from 83???

[fausto]

http://www.racingspo...3-06-19-051.jpg
http://www.racingspo...3-06-19-053.jpg
http://www.racingspo...3-10-16-058.jpg

[Henri Greuter]

Originally posted by ghinzani


Audetto and Patrese and Ceramche Pagnossin (or something similar) so plenty of Italian connections.

I dont know it could have made BMW power but it would have been a lot lighter and easier for the designer to package. Ultimately Toleman went with Hart (I would love to see a pic of the 80/81 Toleman F2 chassis'ed F1 engined mulletta) and Arrows carried on with DFVs. Were Lancia part of the Fiat group at that time? I know Alfa werent but had Lancia been subsumed at that time?

Lighter? I have a bit of doubts on that.
Just like the BMW turbo's, the Lancia 4 was derived from a production engine. And its original capacity was a bit larger too: 2 liter.
Lancia did use a 1.7 liter version of the engine in 1981 to be more competive in the over 2 liter category but even the book "Lancia"by Nigel Throw didn't list much results with these cars and that it were primarily the 1.4 liters that saved the season for Lancia that year, during the first three races of the seas it were even privately entered cars that finished at Daytona (among others) to slavage the 20 points for Lancia.

The bigger engines, supposedly more powerful didn't got much press coverage in books devoted to Lancia. Makes me thing that they were not much of a success.
So I wonder if the smaller engines would hace been capable to produce the power levels required in F1.

Henri

[Henri Greuter]

Originally posted by lanciaman


Henri,

With Lancia it was mostly about the lack of enough money, and in North America, it was also a matter of choosing inept US partners. I found the Italians great to work with-- charming, erudite, fun-- but they had gravely mistaken impressions of the US market and our automotive expectations. The Fiat and Lancia marketing efforts were always woefully underfunded, and in my opinion the American partners were more accustomed to hawking tarted up US tin than Fiats or Lancias. (I could tell you about the "Eager Beaver" Fiat 131 promotion insisted upon by Fiat NA's American CEO but it is still too embarrassing.)

Lancia and Fiat NA Italian management were frankly ill-informed about the high cost of American advertising and how much money it would take to create any market awareness; and for some reason they were not prepared to really push the Lancia competition heritage. I took that message on near singlehandedly and when I found that Toly Aruntunoff had entered his Stratos for Daytona 24 (in 1978, as I recall), I met with almost total disinterest from the men of Montvale, though they agreed to send me to Daytona for the event. (Toly's car was not set up well for the Daytona track and struggled as an amateur entrant.)

Soon after I moved on from Lancia to Pirelli, I was gratified to see the Montes entered in the Glen's 6 Hours and was even more pleased to be able to see them do so well. (I seem to remember there was some tinkering of the Group 5 regs that gave the Lancias parity, but don't remember the specifics-- it was after all nearly 30 years ago.)

As for the Stratos, that car was reported to have a too short wheelbase to be very useful for track racing at high speeds.
The Gp.5 rule tinkering you mentiond: GP 5 had two categories: up to 2 liter (or 1.425 liter turbocharged and above.
Lancia contested the up to 2 liter category with the 1.425 liter turbo and had virtually no opposition in that category. The BMW's and Fords concntrated on the DRM. Above 2 liter the Porsche 935 was hors combat.
But at certain tracks where nible cars with excellent handling had an advantage, Lancia entered cars in the above 2 liter category by enlarging the engine just that little bit that technically it fell in the category of above 2 liters. So if the regular cars won their category (up to 2 liters) and the special car finished in the points in the above two liter category, Lancia scared extra points against Porsche which had the benefit of far more cars enters to secure victory and thus score points.
It worked a few times in 1980 but I think the most impressive fact of the 1.4 liter BetaMontecarlo was that it also managed to win outright on at least one, if not a few more occasions, beating the entire bunch of Porsches. (But Porsche still scoring 20 points because of winning the class.....)

I mentioned my passion for Lancia's Rally efforts, Honesty makes me admit that I was much more devastated and in shock about Henri Toivonen's fatality then I was about De Angelis and Jo Gartner en the weeks that followed. Henri's demise was for me as shocking as that of Gilles 4 years before.
Gp B was in sane for sure. But man did it produce spectacle to watch!

Henri

[Mallory Dan]

Anyone remember the rumour that NART would enter an LC2 at Le Mans, 1984-85 IIRC???