Lancia Megagamma - ITALDESIGN

Perhaps not amongst the other items on this site for its purity of form, or its timeless style, or even for its engineering, the Megagamma was for Lancia, perhaps one of its biggest missed opportunities. It isn't a beautiful car, nor did it evolve into one in any other guise, but had Lancia, or rather the parent FIAT, taken the risk of producing this car the history of MPVs would have forever been accredited to the Italians instead of the French with the Matra-built ESPACE.

It isn't a design without merit, and as a devotee of the work of Giugiaro and ITALDESIGN I am perhaps a little bit jaded, but it is hard to ignore the car's purposefulness. Single wiper sprouting from the valance ahead of the windscreen, trailing edge of the roof turned up as a nod toward aerodynamic efficiency, or perhaps a little wink that it really was a Lancia under its ungainly and unusual skin (in the context of 1978). The Megagamma had more of a bonnet than MPVs that followed it, and under that bonnet lay Lancia's 2.5 liter SOHC boxer '4'; another article for this site but an engine of design kudos in its own right.

For purity of purpose the Megagamma scores highly, it could have been a formidable tool in fighting Lancia's ultimate demise. Oh for the lack of foresight from FIAT and what might have been...