In 1975, in an effort to once again ignite enthusiasm for the Lancia marque, the Fiat engineers, coordinated by Sergio Camuffo called upon the famed Pininfarina to design a new auto, the Lancia Gamma.

Aimed squarely at the market occupied by Mercedes and BMW, the Gamma had the ambition of becoming the Fiat Group's prestige auto, and was presented in both sedan and coupé versions.

No parts were to be interchangeable with any Fiat model, thus contenting the Lancisti of yore. Originally intended to have hydropneumatic suspension by Citroen, the Gamma ended up with four-wheel McPherson struts à la Lancia Beta.

While the Gamma sedan was built in the Lancia factory in Chivasso, near Turin, the coupé was actually built in the designer Pininfarina's prestigious atelier at the rate of about 10 per day.

The presses used to form the bodywork were the same as those used for the Ferrari 400, to which more than a passing resemblance is borne.

Sadly, haste to bring the product to market resulted in insufficient testing, and a few congenital design flaws plagued the Gamma from the very beginning.

The all-alluminum flat four engine had a tendency to overheat and the twin-cam valve timing system with separate timing belts was a source of frequent problems, requiring replacement of the belts well before suggested mileage.

In addition, whereas Pininfarina had done a magistral job of designing the coupé, the sedan's styling was somewhat bloated and didn't receive universal favor.

Lastly, the automatic transmission, the manufacture of which was licensed by the English Automotive Products to an Italian industry and fitted to many of the Gammas was an coup de grace due to it's inherent fragility.

Fiat/Lancia engineers were inexplicably slow to correct the mechanical problems, and most of them were finally resolved only with the introduction of the much-improved Series II model, in 1980.

But by then it was too late. The reputation of unreliablity of the earlier models tainted beyond hope the sales expectations of the Series II, and production of the Lancia Gamma was halted in 1983.

For this reason, many projects, such as the Lancia Montecarlo with the Gamma 2,5 liter engine, or the splendid 1982 Gamma Scala, T-bar Spider, Olgiata, and Series III Coupé never made it into production.

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