1928 Lancia Lambda: one family owner!

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If you know us only a little at this stage (and you do know us, don’t you?), then you know we love it when a car has that little bit of history. The three Edwardian musketeers that Gooding & Company have on offer in their Geared Online sale 11 - 18 June (a 1912 Paterson 30hp, a 1910 Briton 10/12hp and an impressive CGV 20hp Landaulet) all look to be in excellent condition. But not much of their history is mentioned.

1928 Lancia Lambda

And so we’d rather focus on another car in the same sale: a 1928 Lancia Lambda in strikingly original and unmodified condition with a background that has to be unrivalled: This car was sold in Portugal and remained in the original purchaser’s family for no less than 92 years! In that period it was used carefully too, it seems, as that big Jaeger odometer clocked up only 55,000 – that’s just under 600kms a year. It was once ‘refinished’ in the 1980s back to its original blue over brown colours - without disassembly ‘to preserve its factory panel fit’. All the chrome is said to be original, as is the burgundy-coloured leather inside. All the original and period tools, jack, handbook, and registration documents are there. So… a 1928 Lancia Lambda from the 8th series that looks to be in excellent condition but that has never been taken apart and has had just one family owner. That certainly must be unique?

1938 Lancia Astura

It almost makes another Lancia offered look pale: a truly gorgeous 1938 Astura with a four-door cabriolet body by Pininfarina. Yes, it’s prettier, yes, it’s rarer, yes, it’s much more powerful and valuable and yes, it’s a potential concours winner. But it has been restored more than once and doesn’t have the beautiful simplicity of having one previous owner who took such good care of it. Hey, you know us by now, don’t you?

Words by Jeroen Booij. All images copyright and courtesy of Gooding & Company. Photos by Matt Howell.

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