The Lancia Pu+Ra HPE Is an All-Electric, Stratos-Inspired Concept with 435 Miles of Range

It’s been a dark few years for Lancia. The once-legendary Italian automaker has had to make do with small hatchbacks and rebadged Chrysler products for about a decade at this point. Right now, it only sells one car in one market: Italy. But the tides may be changing with the introduction of a new concept: the Pu+Ra HPE. The name may need a little work, but underneath that is something very promising.

In case you missed it:

• These Automakers’ Eras of Car Design Were the Greatest of All Time

• Ducati SportClassic, Yenko Camaro, Ford Surveillance Van: The Dopest Cars I Found for Sale Online

• The Largest Land Vehicles Ever Built

This concept is meant to serve as the start of the next decade of Lancia’s design, and while the concept may look thoroughly modern, it has quite a few styling cues from historic Lancias like the Stratos and Beta and Flaminia. The name “Pu+Ra” comes from Lancia’s “pure and radical” design language, and “HPE” stands for “High Performance Electric.” It also serves as a way to pay homage to the Beta HPE; it originally stood for “High Performance Estate.”

Read more

• These Are Your Guilty Pleasure Cars

• The 15 Most Successful Formula 1 Cars of All Time

• These Cars Should Never Have Been Killed Off

Lancia says that the circular rear lights of the concept draw their inspiration from the rear of the Stratos, and the horizontal slats across the rear window are meant to invoke the 1975 Beta HPE. So, while it does have cues of old cars, the Pu+Re is all about looking ahead. In terms of lighting, the car displays Lancia’s future lighting signature. It’s made up of a Y-shaped light bar with the word “Lancia” written on it with a new font.

Luca Napolitano, Lancia’s CEO, said the Pu+Ra is supposed to represent the automaker’s “vision for the next 10 years that takes Lancia into the era of electric mobility and sums up our way of conceiving and experiencing the car.”