Lancia Motor Club

Sat in the pub this evening and a friend asserts that back in the 1980's a friend bought a Lancia for £400. Now I can't dispute that that was possible or even unlikely because, obviously, it was very easy to spend £400 on a used Lancia back then. I spent even less than that in 1991. And I still have the advert to prove the seller was asking a lot less than that.

I'll get to the point. A few beers and the mind wanders. Sorry. Oh yes, the assertion included the statement that said Lancia had an overdrive gearbox with a switch on the top of the gear-lever. Which kind of stopped me mid pint because, despite an interest in Lancia going back to the very early 1980's, I can't recall any Lancia with an overdrive gearbox. As standard obviously.

Can anyone prove me wrong?

He also suggested that said Lancia was a Beta. So I ran through the gearbox options on the 1300, 1400,1600, 1800, 2000, iE and VX in either Coupe, HPE, Spider, Saloon or Montecarlo and confidently stated they were all 5 speed manuals or 3 speed automatics, none of which had overdrive. The only other version I could suggest was the Trevi in five speed manual, three speed auto or the 10 speed Bimotore which kinda threw him. At which point he conceded potential defeat...

So, was there ever a Lancia with a switched overdrive gearbox?

Guy (slightly the worse for beer - which is a good thing).

I suspect he's getting confused with Triumph where that setup was a common feature. For bonus points, did any Lancia even have an overdrive as standard?

Commercial Appias have an overdrive top (5th gear), I think, but I don't have the ratios to hand

Is that a switchable overdrive though? I doubt my learned friend has ever heard of an Appia let alone a Camioncino!

Guy

I cannot think of a single Lancia with a switchable overdrive as standard fitting; as for it being a Beta, I doubt there is any front-wheel drive car from any manufacturer with an overdrive unit incorporated into the transmission system.

Landrover with Fairey overdrive?

I have driven a couple of Lambdas in Australia that have a switchable electric overdrive on 3rd &4th BUT definitely not standard.

Could be confusing the Beta with an MGB GT which had an overdrive switch on top of the gear lever. Around 1976 a friend of mine was undecided on the MGB GT with O/D or a Beta Coupe and I accompanied him on a test drive of both. He chose the Beta Coupe and then had Nigel Hargreaves breath on it. Job done.