Lancia Motor Club

General => General Chat => Topic started by: westernlancia on 26 May, 2011, 09:28:57 AM



Title: Lancia truck names
Post by: westernlancia on 26 May, 2011, 09:28:57 AM
Just got a really interesting email from Neil Sims about Lancia truck (lorry if you're British...) names (see attachment), and it made me think a bit. Does anyone know any more than me about the names? I have always wondered why the number prefix serieses weren't complete, and from the thing that Neil has sent me it appears that the only one that was ever completed with all the number prefixes (up to 7) was the Jota.

Lancia loved putting prefixes denoting numbers in front of their lorry names - the Esatau, Esagamma and Esadelta should have been preceded by 5 other Taus, Gammas and Deltas because 'Esa' is the Italian for 'Hexa' (they don't have a voiced H or an X in Italian so they miss out the H and replace the X with an S, and 'Hexa-' becomes 'Esa-'). So the Esatau is the Hexa-Tau, and it should have been preceded by the Di-tau, Tri-Tau, etc. - but as far as I can tell it wasn't, and neither were the Esagamma and Esadelta.

But, as I said, there is one where the whole series up to 7 got used - if you look at the Jota (Iota in English), there is the Jota, Di-Jota, Tri-Jota, Tetra-Jota, Penta-Jota, Esa-Jota and Epta-Jota (Epta = Hepta, for 7).

And for the Ro there is the Ro, the RoRo, the 3 Ro and the Esa-Ro, but no Tetra-Ro or Penta-Ro!

But for the Tau, Gamma and Delta there only seem to be the Esatau, Esagamma and Esadelta - I wonder what happened to the other 5?

Anyone know...?

Cheers

Alan


Title: Re: Lancia truck names
Post by: westernlancia on 26 May, 2011, 09:38:00 AM
Sorry - meant to say before. The number prefixes are of course all Greek, to go with the Greek letters that they used for names.

Cheers

Alan


Title: Re: Lancia truck names
Post by: fay66 on 26 May, 2011, 09:45:17 AM
Sorry - meant to say before. The number prefixes are of course all Greek, to go with the Greek letters that they used for names.

Cheers

Alan

A bit like that to me Alan ???

Brian
8227 8)


Title: Re: Lancia truck names
Post by: Sliding Pillar on 26 May, 2011, 02:14:32 PM
Perhaps as they were using the esa prefix to denote the six cylinder engines.


Title: Re: Lancia truck names
Post by: westernlancia on 28 May, 2011, 10:19:47 AM
Perhaps as they were using the esa prefix to denote the six cylinder engines.

No, I don't think it's that (it might be but I don't think so) - I am as sure as I can be that the prefixes refer to the series/mark/reincarnation of the car, like DiKappa, TriKappa, DiLambda, etc. - it was their general practice. It's just that nothing except the trucks got up to 6, and it is odd to say the least to have one that exists only as a 6.

Cheers

Alan


Title: Re: Lancia truck names
Post by: GG on 28 May, 2011, 06:41:12 PM
The chart you have referenced is the "visual shorthand" for a more extensive listing, and the confusion you note is rampant. If you want to go really nuts, the numbering system for the trucks is really difficult.

The answer to your question might be:

- the Jota's are in series, as you note.
- the next is the Omicron, and a desire to make anew.
- then the Ro, which is followed by the RoMB (military) RORO and finally 3RO. And then... the Esaro.
- Following that comes the Esatau, Esadelta, Esagamma.....
- there is of course the late 6RoM (militare)

Now doesn't it all make sense?  ;)

Geoff