Lancia Trevi Bimotore
Car of the Day #124: 1984 Lancia Trevi Bimotore
Years ago, I first learned of the Trevi on Tumblr, of all places, when browsing the posts on carinteriors.tumblr.com, one of the many single topic publications that thankfully still litter the once popular service.
It's inside where the Trevi makes a strong impression, with an almost French-like dedication to a single, slightly flawed theme: circles. Given time, money, and space, I'd buy a Trevi simply for its interior, but more specifically, its dashboard.
(Correct, this car was related to the Beta, and some Beta had the same interior, if you’re inclined to support the circular economy and shop used.)
We can thank the Italian designer Mario Bellini for the car’s accommodations, a man who was previously featured here for the Citroën Kar-A-Sutra, a vehicle weird car people appreciate (while everyone else sees it superficially as a Bang Bus for mimes.)
Anyway, the Trevi, launched in 1980, was quite the technological marvel underneath: a choice of transverse 4-cylinder engines with electronic ignition and dual overhead cams; plus MacPherson struts, anti-roll bar, and an as-standard 5-speed manual transmission to make use of the four-pot motors. Lancia even offered a mechanical supercharger, because why the hell not?
Standard Lancia Trevi dashboard • via Stellantis
These attributes sound great today, but from the outside, the Trevi was as daring as the Sprinter van that delivers Martha Stewart’s table settings…and so many potential customers bought something, anything, that looked even vaguely Italian. Like a BMW.
To me, the Trevi looks like the result of a lucid dream set in the early ’80s where Lancia, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, and Rover designers spent a week near Big Bear Lake in a cabin with two bunk beds and 328 floor pillows.
That didn’t happen, probably. I’m not even at the good part yet.
This car’s nomenclatura includes the word bimotore, signifying two motors…surely the marketing department's idea of a laugh and not actually a Trevi sedan with two… motors…??????
• via Stellantis
Let's not forget that at this time in the early 1980s, Lancia's parent company, Fiat, and factory tuning arm, Abarth, was a main protagonist in rally competition, with the likes of Walter Röhrl piloting the rear-drive Fiat 131 Abarth in some of the final years before Audi, quattro, and the Group B formula changed the sport forever.
Central to the company's success in rally was the late Giorgio Pianta, a gifted test driver and, later, manager during Lancia's most memorable years.
As the car set-up guru, he understood that a confidence-inspiring feel was just as important to a driver on the limit as outright performance. He also knew that Audi was leagues ahead in the four-wheel-drive game, the German automaker having entered a Volkswagen Iltis for the Paris-Dakar as a competition mule of sorts before stuffing a similar drivetrain into their rally car.
Pianta arrived at four-wheel-drive the same way Citroën did in the 2CV Sahara: for simplicity's sake, why not just pop a second engine in the trunk and call it a day?
This is a hunch, but given the competitiveness of rally in 1984, I imagine that the Trevi was an ideal platform to test the peculiarities of 4WD because, even with a second motor in the back and extra air intakes, it's a sleeper car.
Who would believe that a staid sedan was really a test car for the rally team?
Its engines were identical 4-cylinder supercharged units with 150 horsepower each, with throttle linked by an electronic ECU. Basically, the front drivetrain of a Trevi—including suspension and transmission—was plopped out back and made to work under the…uh…care of Lancia test drivers. (Pirelli benefitted, too, with the car providing ample data with which to create their range of tires for Lancia's works rally team.)
• via Stellantis
The now twin-supercharged V8 sedan with drive to all four wheels is said to have a top speed of around 240 km/h (150 mph), and consumed a litre of fuel every 2.5 km under test conditions.
Surprisingly, Pianta left the car in the care of Lancia's historical department, who have kept the machine in working condition to this day — a rare example of a prototype that was spared from the jaws of a crusher.
To have a place among the better-known titans of Lancia’s vast back catalogue of Firsts? I’d say that’s all the endorsement the Trevi Bimotore would ever need.
Stellantis still has the car, and arranged for photo and video materials in order to keep this weird car’s story alive. Bravo.
The truly pedantic among you will notice the car’s deep red Amaranto Montebello paintwork with longitudinal stripes; the blue and yellow hues are sourced from Turin, Italy’s coat of arms.
1984 Lancia Trevi Bimotore interior • via Stellantis
Finally, proudly, unmistakably: the Trevi Bimotore is resplendent with Italian character. Its sculptural Mario Bellini dashboard? Uncut, unflocked, and unbothered by its role as the stage for a most odd Italian opera. Watch the official video above to see where the racing department hid most of their test equipment within the dashboard’s circular orifices.
Unlike other proud automotive personalities, Giorgio Pianta signed his name to the back of the car — not to the mostly-stock dashboard, as he surely could have — to forever seal his identity with the twin-engined Trevi, a literal fountain of weird-brained Italian thinking. Fantastico.
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