That is the brand new Lancia Ypsilon Edizione Limitata Cassina, the debut version of Lancia’s latest mannequin and the automotive it hopes to carry it again to prominence as a design-led, premium firm after a few years within the wilderness. Simply 1906 numbered vehicles can be made (a nod to the corporate’s basis 12 months), all of which can be pure electrical autos. The brand new Ypsilon, which additionally goes on sale on the identical time, is out there as an EV and a hybrid, and can be adopted by the Delta mannequin in 2025 and the flagship Lancia Gamma in 2026.
Lancia Ypsilon Edizione Limitata Cassina
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
By involving the legendary furnishings firm on this launch version, Lancia has made a daring assertion of intent. One of many 14 manufacturers within the Stellantis steady, Lancia lagged behind its friends, with just one mannequin out there, a shrinking market share and the fall-out from an ill-fated tie-in with Chrysler that did a lot to dilute the corporate’s individualist picture.
Teresa Mendicino, Lancia’s head of Model Design, factors out that it ‘needed to do essentially the most when it comes to branding’. This included a brand new company id and badge, in addition to an all-new design language and product technique for the vehicles themselves.
Lancia Ypsilon Edizione Limitata Cassina, with blue velvet seats
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
‘We’re a small workforce with plenty of ardour,’ says Mendicino. ‘All of us sat collectively and strategised about shifting to a premium stage, the place all of us felt Lancia belonged. Now we have to fastidiously calibrate many alternative parts – what we name our “codes of desirability”.’
Lancia’s heritage is wealthy. Fashioned in 1906, it was technically revolutionary and famed for the fantastic thing about its vehicles, a lot of which have been formed by Italy’s best coachbuilders. It was additionally massively profitable in motorsport, notably rallying.
All of this provides as much as create an Italian cultural heavyweight, even when the truth of the corporate within the early 2020s was approach off the mark. Mendocino and her workforce realised that each aspect of the Lancia ‘renaissance’ must be fastidiously co-ordinated. ‘There’s plenty of emotion within the imagery we use,’ she explains, ‘which incorporates structure, product design, style – each factor of the Italian life-style.’
The saddle-leather clad ‘desk’ within the Lancia Ypsilon Edizione Limitata Cassina
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
Cassina’s CEO Luca Fuso is enthusiastic in regards to the new collaboration. After a long time of producing and supplying designs by among the twentieth and twenty first century’s most acclaimed designers, Cassina has now set its sights on one other strand of design. The Lancia Ypsilon Edizione Limitata Cassina not solely marks the rebirth of the model, however the begin of a design partnership with Cassina aimed toward strengthening each firm’s Italian roots.
The Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Idea showcased the model’s new design language
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
Gianni Colonello is head of Lancia Inside Design. Along with initiating the partnership with Cassina, his portfolio is an enviable one. ‘Though it’s been a really intense and brief course of, this can be a actual one-of-a-kind job for a designer,’ he says, ‘you don’t usually get the prospect to begin from the bottom up.’
Colonello describes how every member of his design workforce has their very own imaginative and prescient of Lancia, however that ‘someway they’re all aligned’. ‘We all know that Lancia may be very Italian however that it additionally has a really distinctive method to design,’ he continues, ‘it’s a really culture-led method.’ Therefore the work with Cassina.
The Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Idea’s tail lamps evoke the Lancia Stratos
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
‘Each manufacturers are deeply rooted in Italy,’ Fuso concurs. ‘Lancia known as us with the thought of uncovering this long-lost spirit in Lancia vehicles. They have been as soon as referred to as “residing rooms on wheels” – very comfy, excessive efficiency, but in addition lovely inside and outside. Lancia needed Cassina to be their companions in serving to form this new technology inside design.’
Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Idea is a geometrical composition
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
The method began in 2022, across the time that Lancia was setting out its new and distinct id. The primary order of enterprise was to assist form the colors and supplies of Lancia’s assertion piece, the 2023 Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Idea. ‘The thought was to be at house within the automotive,’ says Fuso, ‘and we additionally labored on parts just like the “espresso desk” in the midst of the automotive.’ The Pu+Ra idea represents the best hits of Lancia’s previous, all easily blended right into a svelte EV with a minimal, space-age inside and a physique that references key vehicles just like the wedge-shaped Stratos rally automotive of the Seventies.
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
‘We pushed for an architectural method,’ Colonello says. ‘You’ll be able to actually see the construction. It’s a mixture of traditional, fashionable and eclectic varieties – all very eclectic.’ The ‘desk’ was central to the method. ‘This desk factor began within the idea, nevertheless it has turn into a part of the brand new Ypsilon,’ says Fuso. ‘It’s the place the place the collaboration between the 2 firms actually took form.’ Completed in hard-wearing saddle leather-based, the deep blue color is one other acquainted Lancia trope. Cassina’s workforce have been additionally deployed to provide the entire inside a way of refinement and ease that evoked their high-end items of furnishings.
Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Idea, exhibiting the origins of the desk factor
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
‘We requested Lancia to take out the chrome trim and change it with black, each inside and outside,’ says Fuso, who explains the opposite main characteristic – the darkish blue velvet seats with their ‘cannelloni’ striped cushion helps – ‘reminded us of the Lancia fashions from the Seventies.’ The idea exaggerated these design parts and Colonello describes how ‘easy, geometric and readable’ volumes have been carried by way of into the brand new Ypsilon, a reality highlighted by the launch version.
‘Lancia and Cassina are examples of Italian excellence,’ he says. Different improvements embrace the debut of Lancia’s S.A.L.A. infotainment system – ‘Sound, Air, Mild and Augmentation’ – which centralises controls for audio, air and light-weight.
The design for the brand new Casa Lancia Showrooms
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
‘We’re very pleased with the outcome,’ says Fuso. ‘I believe we’ve actually conveyed a relaxed ambiance.’ The collaboration additionally extends to Cassina’s presence in Lancia’s new Model Expertise centres, the primary of which was opened in Milan in 2023. These ‘Casa Lancia’ areas embrace Cassina furnishings and fixtures, in addition to a fastidiously composed color palette.
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
The furnishings maker has had a couple of brushes with automotive design up to now. Mario Bellini’s iconic Kar-a-sutra from 1972 was constructed by Cassina, with its spacious, padded inside and wedge-shaped type that predated the subsequent decade’s MPV pattern (Bellini was additionally chargeable for the trypophobically triggering dashboard of the 1980 Lancia Trevi). The Pu+Ra HPE Idea drew specific affect from the work of one other designer from the Cassina steady, Vico Magistretti, whose Maralunga armchairs come to mind by the idea’s daring, chunky entrance seats.
Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Idea inside, with its Magistretti-inspired entrance seats
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
For Colonello, Cassina’s involvement showcases how Lancia also can accommodate its previous while nonetheless shifting forwards. ‘They nonetheless produce their traditional items of furnishings,’ he explains, including that Lancia’s assortment of historic autos is simply 50m from his studio in Turin. It was right here that 9 traditional vehicles from Lancia’s previous have been chosen and distilled into the varieties, colors and ethos of the Pu+Ra HPE Idea. They embrace the luxurious Flaminia, the influential Aurelia B20 GT, the rally-winning Delta and Stratos, the purist Fulvia and extra.
Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Idea inside
(Picture credit score: Lancia)
The Ypsilon is step one in an formidable ten-year plan to carry the Lancia identify again to cultural prominence. As companions go, Cassina couldn’t be extra completely chosen, indicating simply how essential interiors are going to be to the subsequent technology of automotive patrons.
Lancia.com, @Lancia_Official
Cassina.com, @CassinaOfficial
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