Lancia Monte Carlo/Scorpion
The 1970s were a heyday of half-baked mid-engined cars, as automakers began toying with the idea of a midships-engined car to project a sporty, agile image. From the woeful Bricklin to the Fiat X1/9 to the Porsche 914, and including even the many mid-engined Corvette concepts featured on car magazine covers seemingly ever month in the '70s, mid-engined cars were hot.
The Lancia Monte Carlo (known as the Scorpion in the U.S.) was one of my favorite mid-engine sports cars of that era. Not incredibly powerful, with only 122 horsepower out of its 2-liter four-cylinder engine, the Lancia nevertheless had its charms. The engine was a rowdy screamer, making up for its lack of ultimate power with an eager charge towards redline, and the car itself was light and tossable.
Most of all, I love the styling. Hard-edged yet elegant, stubby yet flowing, the Monte Carlo/Scorpion had classic proportions and a clean European look reminscent of its contemporaries, the series 1 Lotus Esprit and the Jaguar XJ-S. Check out those flying buttresses!
A friend of mine owned a Scorpion, and while his example was completely knackered, it was easy to see the appeal. With a snarling engine right behind your head, and red mist impairing your judgment, pushing the bends in a rare Italian sports car is a lot of fun. How rare? Only 2,000 made it to the U.S., and given Lancia's reputation for rustproofing, I doubt many of those are still in one piece.
Lancia had a sterling rally race record both before (with the Stratos) and after (with the Delta) the Monte Carlo/Scorpion. A Monte Carlo derivative, the 037, was one of the great rally cars in the incredibly powerful Group B rally era--a classic both for its looks and its performance.
The top photo is from a great Scorpion post at BringaTrailer.com, which lists unique cars for sale around the country. That's an evil, evil concept that may just bankrupt me. There are a few more great photos of that black Scorpion in the post.
The second image is a European Monte Carlo from a European Concours d'Elegance; it's worth visiting that page, as there are quite a few rare and interesting European cars (and, oddly, a Rambler 440) pictured there. The third image is of the 037 rally car in full Martini regalia, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
For those interested, LanciaMonteCarlo.net is a great resource for these cars; I would have loved to show some images from their Scorpion gallery, but they write all over their photos with their website information and it would've looked a little strange. It's still the best image repository for Scorpions that I've seen.
--Chris H.
Mochi Mochi on February 29, 2008 at 09:12 PM
BEAUTIFUL ! B E A U T I F U L ! What lines. What balance of form. This is what auto design CAN be about. Crisp, elegant, balanced, and restrained. This car is like an aria by Verde or a beautifully structured string quartet. I hear music when I see this car.
NO I DON'T CARE THAT IT WONT RUN RELIABLY.
NO I DON'T CARE THAT IT WILL RUST AWAY TO NOTHING WHILE I WATCH.
well actually I do care about that but... it would be appropriate that such beauty would only be temporal. A flame, a flower, a song - it has its time and then is gone...
And yes I know any modern day performance car can blow its doors off (at least in a straight line). This is a car that is about way more than horse power or G-force on a skid pad - and less at the same time. There is something just plain lovely and enigmatic about this car.
I respect the Dodge Magnum SRT-8 - it is big and muscular. It shows everything off and has a very pointed message that no one can miss. The Magnum is a great muscle car, but there is a message of excess. Bigger than it needs to be, bristling with power, more power than one might ever need or use. It looks as fast as it is.
The Lancia Monte Carlo is the opposite of that. It not about a big statement. It is not about excess. It is small and refined without being either prissy or overly luxurious. It does not try to look like it can go 200mph. It has enough power to go as fast as any one would reasonably ever want to go. Who really needs more than 2 liter four in the right car?
There may be a message in this car, but it is not obvious. And if it is making a statement, its some kind of an anti-statement. It is a statement about beauty, balance and an economy of means. What ever it is saying I am listening. I'm listening to the aria. I'm listening to the strings. Goethe said that Architecture is frozen music. The Lancia may be an example of what happens when that frozen music is thawed by some great Italian design and a nice little mid-engine four.
The music of the Lancia is so sweet...
Bravo!!! Bravo!!!
Cookie the Dog's Owner on March 01, 2008 at 07:16 AM
I've always preferred the creased-and-folded styling of 1970s Italian cars (Pininfarina, Guigaro) to the chrome-and-vinyl-roof school then prevalent in the U.S., and I like it better than the half-melted-bar-of-soap look that seems to be in style right now.
It's probably no more unreliable than the contemporary Vega or Pinto or Volare. If you're going to own a car that's mechanically unreliable, you might as well have one that's fun to drive while it's running.
Chris Hafner on March 01, 2008 at 10:24 PM
Cookie the Dog's Owner: "If you're going to own a car that's mechanically unreliable, you might as well have one that's fun to drive while it's running."
I couldn't agree more. You've basically summed up the entire mission statement for Car Lust.
Chris Hafner on March 01, 2008 at 10:34 PM
Very well put, Mochi Mochi - "Crisp, elegant, balanced, and restrained."
Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
There's something just intrinsically right about the Monte Carlo's proportions, something innately pleasing about its spareness of line.
If more cars on the road looked like the Monte Carlo, the world would be a better place.
Jph on March 04, 2008 at 09:06 PM
the bricklin was front engine
Chris Hafner on March 04, 2008 at 09:18 PM
jph: "the bricklin was front engine"
I just looked it up, and of course you're completely right. I'm astonished - I just always assumed the Bricklin was mid-engined. It has that distinctive mid-engine profile.
Hucbald on May 01, 2008 at 05:29 PM
My best friend in high school had a Lancia Scorpion, while I had an X1/9. He couldn't touch me on a Gymkhana course, but his car was far more luxuriously fitted out. I had no idea they were so rare!
Ingram Powell on June 16, 2008 at 11:43 PM
Those who get their kicks from flooring the accelerator of an overweight brute (with automatic transmission and primitive suspension) have never understood the thrill of heel-and-toeing a screaming Italian twin-cam THROUGH the corners (and not just OUT OF them). Too bad.
A WRX or Mitsu Evo will run rings around a Montecarlo or X1/9, but that rather misses the point. Both Japs would also leave a 206GTB struggling in their wake, but their complicated technology is constantly fighting the mass of their engines located in front of the axle. Plus they look like crap.
I don't mind that Bubba doesn't share my love of Alfas, Fiats and Lancias - that keeps their values down where I can afford to enjoy them!
Ingram Powell on June 16, 2008 at 11:45 PM
Those who get their kicks from flooring the accelerator of an overweight brute (with automatic transmission and primitive suspension) have never understood the thrill of heel-and-toeing a screaming Italian twin-cam THROUGH the corners (and not just OUT OF them). Too bad.
A WRX or Mitsu Evo will run rings around a Montecarlo or X1/9, but that rather misses the point. Both Japs would also leave a 206GTB struggling in their wake, but their complicated technology is constantly fighting the mass of their engines located in front of the axle. Plus they look like crap.
I don't mind that Bubba doesn't share my love of Alfas, Fiats and Lancias - that keeps their values down where I can afford to enjoy them!
Cal on November 03, 2008 at 07:03 AM
There was a Lancia Scorpion which was the object of affection in Herbie the Love bug (the original). I remember that it was a car I really wanted that and a Lotus Europa (don't ask me why) I think I had a Corgi car of the Europa, one of the ugliest midengine cars ever built.
http://www.imcdb.org/images/001/642.jpg
DJ Richards on February 09, 2009 at 10:28 PM
I like that this is an article supportive of the Montecarlo and the Scorpion. But there are some inaccuracies that require correction.
1. The European version was called Montecarlo (not Monte Carlo)
2. The US version had a heavily smogged 1.8 liter engine producing about 86 HP, not the 120 HP 2 liter found in Montecarlos.
3. There were approximately 1,806 Scorpions brought to North America (US and Canada).
4. The cars are only unreliable if not maintained and just driven. Sadly, there were many neglected over the years and they gained a bad reputation because of this.
5. There are several hundred Scorpions and over twice as many Montecarlos still around today. See the Scorpion Registry at Lancisti.net.
And, for the record, there are thousands of Lancia pictures (including the Montecarlo and Scorpion in the galleries at Lancisti.net. :-)
Cheers,
DJ