New Lancia Thema: Chrysler 300's European Alter Ego
 

What do you think?

New Lancia Thema
http://www.blogmotori.com/wp-content...a-Thema-02.jpg

Lancia Thema Turbo 16V LX 2ª Serie (1988-1992)
http://www.blogmotori.com/wp-content...88-1992-01.jpg

Gallery: www.BlogMotori.com

They're just ruining and destroying Lancia. In five years it'll just disapear.

The biggest market for Lancia is Europe, and here american cars are considered as unexpensive piece of plastic shit. Nothing to do with Lancia who was considered a luxury brand ...
They better had bought the german Stratos project !

Sacrilege. Nothing good has ever come from involving American auto manufacturers in anything. I can't for the world of me figure out why they thought this was the best way to kill Lancia. Because it will.

The greatest automotive brand in the world just died.

Lancia has been on the verge of death for ages. This move will cause it to die.
Nobody with half a brain would think about buying the Ypsilon, Musa or Phedra. The only acceptable car they have right now is the Delta and no firm can survive on the sales of just one car.

And so the company that brough us the first unibody car, the first V4, the first this and the first that, the beautiful Aurelia and Stratos and Fulvia goes from selling rebadged Fiats to rebadged Chryslers. Craaaaaaaap.

Well, Lancia has never really been famous for the mid sized filler cars anyway .... that original Thema was just a rebadged Saab 9000.

That's a bit strong. As I recall, the Thema, the 9000, the Alfa Romeo 164 and the Fiat Chroma (?) was developed together in what was called the four-leaf clover project, so calling it a straight re-badging is a bit rich.

Right, perhaps it was a bit strong, as those all share the same platform, but the Thema was the one they changed the least, with nearly all parts interchangable all the way down to the door handles ...

Whatever the future of Lancia, the Thema doesn't even try to cover up the 300M appearance . . . which is making me nauseated to look at.

I'm glad you brought that up. I'm a huge Lancia fan, have owned several Betas, etc., but the Thema was a badge-engineered job, with very little in the way of real improvement over say, a Chroma - and CERTAINLY less money was put into the Thema line (including the 8.32) than into the 164 Alfa.

This may not be the best way to save Lancia, but Lancia's been limping along for decades, and Chrysler's reputation can hardly be worse than Lancia's in the mind of the typical, non-car-fan buyer who snaps up Camrys and Accords.

This might be good for both Lancia and Chrysler - and I'm leaning towards optimism. Remember: it wasn't that long ago that American Motors was going to ruin Jeep, then Chrysler was going to ruin Jeep, then Mercedes was going to ruin Jeep, etc. Jeep has grown, despite rough patches and some weak products now and then. The first batch of Chrysler Lancias will be weaksauce, but Lancia will have more time and budget on the next batch ... those will be the cars, in 2-3 years, that will determine if the brand lives or dies. Not these.