Lancia Aurelia B53 Allemano: variation on a theme

By Martin Buckley

| 10 Oct 2023

Classic & Sports Car – Lancia Aurelia B53 Allemano: variation on a theme

Amid all the excitement surrounding the new baby Lancia (the Appia) and the sensation of the Bertone BAT Alfa Romeo concept cars, the understated two-door Aurelia on the Allemano stand must have struggled to capture visitors’ attention at Turin in 1953.

Allemano produced a sister pillarless four-door Aurelia along the same lines: both were one-offs, and would remain so.

This Allemano Aurelia B53 was merely one of dozens of concepts and proposals you could have seen at Italy’s premier automobile salon, in perhaps Turin’s most frenzied period of creativity.

Distinctive script for the badging on Allemano’s Lancia Aurelia

It was a city whose prosperity was largely based on a local ability to transform sheets of mild steel into attractive shapes.

Labour was still relatively cheap, and hammer-wielding abilities were in the blood of the local talent, descendants of those who had fashioned Roman swords and armour centuries before.

When you consider the Aurelia, you tend to think of Pinin Farina and its B20GT coupé and B24 Spider.

Allemano, in contrast, is a mere footnote in the Aurelia story alongside the likes of Balbo, Boneschi and Viotti, although the latter did gain some fame as the factory-sanctioned maker of Aurelia station wagons.

This Lancia’s striking dashboard marks out the B53 Allemano as a coachbuilt car

Founded in 1928 by Serafino Allemano, the carrozzeria acquired a certain notoriety in the post-war years when it was working with Giovanni Michelotti.

This Turin show Aurelia, chassis B531008, is one of the prolific stylist’s many creations – Michelotti also did half a dozen (or possibly more) one-off or short-run Aurelia bodies with his regular long-term body-making partner, Alfredo Vignale.

Allemano had built Ferrari’s first road-car bodies, but was not a fully industrialised firm in the mould of Pinin Farina, Bertone and Ghia: it was the sort of outfit you turned to when you needed a show car or a batch of 20 or so bodies built using traditional methods.

Bakelite details adorn the Lancia’s door cards

Before closing its doors in 1965, the Allemano workshop flitted effortlessly between contracts for Fiat (bodying Abarths), one-off prototypes for the emerging Japanese motor industry or, towards the end, the lion’s share of the bodywork supplied to Maserati for its exotic 5000GT.

In terms of satisfying a still-existing appetite for specialist, non-standard bodywork after the Second World War, Lancia simply took up where it had left off, strengthening its ties with Pinin Farina but also spreading its bets among various smaller firms.

Encouraged by the enthusiastic reception given to its refined new Aurelia, with the world’s first production V6, Lancia was confident that there remained in Italy – and Europe more widely – a hardcore of wealthy customers willing to pay extra for a more individual product.

The Lancia’s plump sofas seat up to six people

Which is why it ensured that, as with the Aprilia, the new V6 flagship was readily available as an autotelaio, a running platform chassis with a longer wheelbase but retaining the four-speed transaxle and new semi-trailing wishbone rear suspension (the de Dion-axle Aurelias did not appear until 1954).

Exactly how much determined early post-war individualists paid for a car such as this is hard to confirm, but a third to a half as much over and above the 2.3 million lire list price of a factory Aurelia saloon is a reasonable guess.

Even at those figures, Lancia had no trouble selling its factory-bodied Aurelia Berlinas.

There are hints of Riley Pathfinder in the Allemano-styled Lancia, especially at the rear

In fact, thanks mainly to ageing tooling and inefficient production methods, it had trouble making enough.

Thus, in a certain sense, the availability of specialist coachwork took the pressure off the firm’s limited ability to produce the standard bodywork.

The 1.7-litre B50 was the first of the chassis-only cars, mostly supplied to Pinin Farina for its officially catalogued five-seater cabriolet – a grand motor car, but not a fast one on 55bhp.

The 1991cc V6 engine struggles at times, but is mostly gutsy enough

The 1952 B52 chassis addressed this to a certain extent with a 2-litre engine giving 69bhp; with wider tyres and a higher-ratio differential it was coded B53, a variant that accounted for just 86 of the 774 right-hand-drive autotelaio Aurelias supplied to coachbuilders through to 1956.

Some were show cars (such as Pinin Farina’s jet-age-inspired PF200s), others were produced in small batches of 10-20 examples, all differing slightly in their minor details.

Keen to align themselves with what many Italians considered to be its motor industry’s finest product, a wide variety of coachbuilders opted for the Aurelia as a basis, although the visual results were mixed.

Neither Ghia nor Frua, for instance, excelled themselves on the Aurelia chassis and not even Pinin Farina got it right every time, often vacillating between the bland and the overblown.

The Lancia Aurelia B53 Allemano’s discreet Michelotti shape has aged well

The Allemano Aurelia’s understated profile is somewhat at odds with its loud and cheerful two-tone colour scheme.

It seems to originally have been painted a monotone hue, as shown at Turin according to period black-and-white images.

Rounded in shape with a long, slightly droopy tail, it has a hint of Riley Pathfinder about it – British stylist Gerald Palmer was reportedly inspired by a special-bodied Lancia Aprilia – but its two frameless doors with no centre pillar give it an exotic aura that is as much American as it is Italian.

Interestingly, in 1952 Bertone produced a single B52 coupé that looked very similar to the Allemano car in profile.

The Lancia’s slim doorhandles are a sporty design

This sort of cross-pollination of styling influences was common and went mostly unremarked upon in the close-knit, internecine atmosphere of the Turin coachbuilding trade, where so much work was subcontracted and the true origins of a design were often lost in the mists of time.

The B20GT, for instance, was originally designed by Boano and built by Viotti, but only became associated with Pinin Farina when orders outgrew Viotti’s ability to build the bodies.

Equally, it would be hard to argue that Boano had not been inspired by Pinin Farina’s Cisitalia, or that it wasn’t the tweaks Farina applied to the B20 that cemented its place among the truly great post-war Italian designs.

There’s a back-up, do-it-yourself fuel gauge in the rear

The bumpers of the B53 are plain, the front somewhat fussy with an unusual chip-cutter texture to its traditional, shield-shaped Lancia radiator grille.

The streamlined doorhandles seem racy for such a patrician carriage and the hubcaps are more substantial-looking than those fitted to regular Aurelia models.

Discreet ‘Coupé Aurelia’ badges adorn the front wings; at the rear the carrozzeria signs off its work on the bootlid-handle/numberplate-light housing in an exuberant script.

Proud badging for the bespoke Lancia Aurelia B53 Allemano coupé

The rear-hinged bonnet opens to reveal the familiar compact, single-carburettor V6 with its staggered cylinder banks, crackle-back tappet covers and that strange, six-fingered distributor cap.

The black, twin-plunger unit sited on the bulkhead holds lubricant for the sliding-pillar front suspension, the radiator has thermostatically controlled blinds, and the fuses are neatly organised under a protective cover.

A beautifully presented toolkit that folds out of the boot floor is one of the highlights of the car.

You top up the petrol tank via a huge filler cap inside the luggage area, complete with a measuring stick to check the level as a back-up to the fuel gauge on the dash.

Allemano’s attention to detail is perfectly summed up by the concealed toolkit in the boot

Inside, the B53 has the upbeat feel of a 1950s Italian gelateria.

It seats four, five or perhaps even six on two buttoned, cloth-covered sofas.

There is a toffee-coloured theme running through the Bakelite window winders and doorhandles, the textured steering-wheel rim and the various unlabelled switches on the busy dashboard with its large, impressive speedometer and rev counter.

The Condor radio, marked with the initials of the major Italian cities for tuning purposes, is neatly flush-fitted, and there are twin door pockets and Allemano-badged door furniture.

There’s a stylish radio in the Lancia Aurelia B53 Allemano

All of this is in sharp contrast to the restrained severity of the factory Aurelia saloons, which, at their best, are probably a finer drive than the various coachbuilt versions – including this one.

To start up, you turn the key, press it to energise the starter and pull smoothly away on a clutch with good bite and feel, having negotiated the sweetly precise column gearchange with first furthest away and reverse nearest.

In its soft state of tune and pulling the additional chintz (and unknown quantities of lead filler) of the Allemano body, the 70bhp V6 cannot perform miracles: the acceleration is smooth and leisurely, with just a suggestion of expensive offbeat throatiness to the exhausts, but with sufficient torque and drivetrain refinement to make low-speed running a pleasure and enough thrust to impress drivers of most 1950s saloons.

The restrained Lancia Aurelia B53 Allemano was built for comfort rather than speed

The steering is not heavy and the general combination of stability, composure and strong brakes gives this smooth, sweet-riding if rather overweight 70-year-old Lancia an aura of confidence, competence and security that is more 1970s in feel and flavour.

It is a lovely thing, evidently restored at great expense at some point in the not-too-distant past.

I first encountered it a few years ago when it was about to be sold by its Dutch collector owner; since then, chassis B531008 has lived in California and Turkey, and has been no stranger to the auction block, be it in Paris, Monaco or Amelia Island.

Now with a Belgian dealer and in search of another new custodian, this unique Lancia has almost certainly clocked up more miles in the air or on the high seas than it will ever do on the public road.

Images: James Mann

**Lancia’s Aurelia autotelaio (platform chassis)**

Lancia’s B50/B51 chassis was mostly supplied to Pinin Farina

1. B50/B51 (1950-’52)

The first of the long-wheelbase, platform-chassis Aurelias created for coachbuilders, mostly Pinin Farina but also Bertone and Boneschi.

The 2-litre engine in the B15/B15S was an improvement on the 55bhp, 1.7-litre unit in the earlier B50

2. B15/B15S (1952-’53)

This sober, stretched, six-light limousine featured a derated B21 2-litre engine making 65bhp, along with 16in wheels and alternative axle ratios.

The bodies were constructed by Bertone, with 81 built.

The improved B52/B53 Lancias had more grunt, wider tyres and a higher-ratio differential

3. B52/B53 (1952-’53)

A development of the B50/B51, but with a 2-litre engine from the B21 to counteract the additional weight of their special bodywork.

A wide variety of show cars and limited-run specials, including 47 Giardinetta ‘woodie’ wagons by Viotti.

The final Aurelia autotelaio was mostly used for show cars

4. B55/B56 (1955-’56)

The final platform-chassis version of the Aurelia, based on the de Dion-suspended B12 and mainly used by Pinin Farina as a basis for show cars such as the elegant Florida and Florida II (above), inspiration for the subsequent Flaminia series.

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