Yahoo Autos This Lancia Voyager Is Down on the European Street
The last time that new Lancias were available in the United States was 1982, when the final handful of Zagatos hit dealerships.
The venerable Italian brand—bought by Fiat in 1969 and gradually bleeding out since the 1990s—is being relaunched as an all-electric marque and may well regain its former glory.
To tell that story later on, though, we need to take a look at Lancia's low point: the 2010s. That's when the purchase of Chrysler by Fiat led to Chrysler minivans with Lancia badging. I spotted a Lancia Voyager parked on the not-so-mean streets of Luxembourg City recently.
The Voyager wasn't the only Chrysler product sold in Europe with Lancia badges; the Chrysler 300 sedan became the Lancia Thema II on that side of the ocean as well, joined by the Chrysler 200 convertible with Flavia badging.
If you think American Chrysler purists were angry about the Fiat-derived Dodge Dart, just imagine the rage that European Lancia purists felt over the Voyager and Thema II. Meanwhile, Saab badges were going onto Chevy Trailblazers and Nissan Frontiers were being sold as Suzukis, proof that the world had gone completely mad.
The Voyager name has gone on many vehicles over the decades, including a Royal Navy destroyer in 1918, a Mercury station wagon in 1957-1958, the first aircraft to fly nonstop and unrefueled around the world, various Kawasaki motorcycles since 1979, the most-traveled vehicles in human history and, of course, the original K-car-based Plymouth Voyager minivan. After Plymouth got the axe in 2001, Chrysler badges were hurriedly pasted on US-market Voyagers for a couple of years.
The Chrysler Town & Country was sold in Europe as the Grand Voyager, and I managed to find one of those vans in Esch-sur-Alzette, the heart of Luxembourg's once-thriving steel industry. Just to keep things interesting in the far-flung Chrysler Minivan Empire, Volkswagen took a shot at selling thinly disguised Dodge Caravans as Routans in North America.
The Lancia Voyager was sold just for the 2011 through 2015 model years, after which the Ypsilon became the only Lancia model available anywhere.
Life is a trip. Never travel alone. And good luck parking it in a thousand-year-old European town!
Ontdek het nieuwe Lancia.
Fit the entire band inside.
