Vincenzo Lancia drove racing cars professionally for eight years before, in 1908, producing the first machine to bear his name. The performance heritage the innovative Italian brought to his cars became part of the automotive DNA of the Lancia vehicles that subsequently emanated from the firm's Turin (Torino) works in the decades that followed.

Lancia offered an impressive narrow-angle V-8 model in the early 1920s, but the marque is more widely remembered for the outstanding V-4-powered Lambda produced during that decade. A low-slung car with pioneering semi-unit body construction and independent front suspension, the nimble Lambda won Lancia new adherents throughout Europe and elsewhere.

In 1937, Vincenzo Lancia died, whereupon his son, Gianni, became the automaker's chief executive. Gianni continued to build cars exhibiting the spirited flair that had always set Lancia apart from the mundane. Although the Lancia family would relinquish control in 1955, the I