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2025Lancia Kappa Coupé 838
Lancia Kappa Coupé 838
Automotive Photography | Autobiography | Published on Driven to Write
A car that takes some getting used to
Cats chose who they want to be with and just appear in your life.
This is about how a vehicle I never once searched for found me and the summer we spent together, exploring the beautiful landscapes of Niederbayern.
Love at first sight?
Certainly not. The first time I encountered a Lancia κ Coupé was in autumn 1997, when a friends Dad obtained one in Verde Plutone 384, my least favourite colour, but with a lovely beige leather interior: Cuoio 405. The ungainly black bumper inserts emphasized the long overhangs, making them even more pronounced on pre-facelift models. The stance was horrible, way too high with small and narrow wheels. It made the car look top heavy and tipsy with fat hips, especially when viewed from the rear.
Picture Source: The Collectables / Netherlands
Driving was a different story and the sound of the 2.4 liter five cylinder engine was ingrained in my brain forever – refreshed about 15 years later by a four-door Kappa with the same engine a good friend of mine drove as a winter car. It was black metallic with red fabric interior.
Casual conversation leads to classic car ownership
Fast forward to February 2022. My friends and I enjoyed dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant, when one of them asked if I was still looking for a cool daily driver. A friend of his Dads best friend was asking for a friend whose friends customer owned it from new. Unfortunately he had to sell his car collection due to old age and not being able to drive any more. He was a very careful owner who never drove in winter and kept it well maintained over all the years. Beautiful colour combination, equipped with a 5-cylinder engine, manual gearbox, working A/C, heated seats and sunroof – now available for an attractive price. The usual guessing game began and all of us fancied a Volvo over any Audi, but to our amazement he said it’s neither of those – but one of only 3.271 Lancia κ Coupés made by Maggiora in Chivasso. Interest sparked, I agree to inspect the coupé with him on the next day after work.
The fading light of a cold winter day was just enough to see that it is indeed a very solid car in a more unusual but incredibly pretty colour combination of Grigio Mercurio 609 and Mattone 442. Opening the frameless window doors for the first time was enchanting, as I really love the interior colour. Mattone translates to red brick and the name hits the nail on the head. No matter which lighting condition, it does look stunning, like a brick wall in the late afternoon sun. Other interior materials are okay and some of them better ignored. The contrast between pure opulence and mass-produced cheap plastic is intriguing. The gauges are finely detailed, very elegant and I was glad to be sitting in a facelift model, as the earlier steering wheel is horrendously ugly. The passenger airbag cover still reflects the earlier version, as they didn’t bother to update this part.
Asked to return the following weekend for a test drive, we left with the tickling sensation of possibly being able to purchase a very rare and hand-built motor vehicle. Sadly we never got to speak to the owner, as he was too sick and didn’t want to meet visitors. The colour combination is the same as the car pictured in the centerfold of the brochure.
Love at first drive?
Not really. The test drive revealed that the car ran and drove great, the brick red Kaleidos® leather from Paltrona Frau was buttery smooth, the engine sound something to behold and it is more agile than a front wheel drive vehicle of this size and girth has any right to be. A deal was done and we shook hands on it. The seller agreed to get the non-working HVAC fan fixed at his cost and once done I may return and take delivery.
Only later did I learn that I was incredibly lucky and this offer was a godsend, as it involved sourcing a fan from a Lancia Lybra and modifying it to fit the 838. Installing the fan required removal and re-assembly of several parts in the engine bay, including disconnecting the coolant and A/C systems, to the tune of € 1.400. All in all it took two months to get it ready for the season, including fresh oil and brake fluid.
On a lovely day in April, I registered the Lancia and we collected it from the garage with freshly minted QP 838 license plates, denoting body style and chassis code. Back home, I changed air filters and replaced all six headlight bulbs with Osram NightBreaker 220+ items to improve visibility at night.
The contract for the Ford Focus ST Turnier I drove previously expired and I didn’t replace it – the Lancia now being my only vehicle on the road for the 2022 summer season.
On one of the first drives I took this picture of an approaching thunderstorm in the afternoon and deeply hoped that it wasn’t a sign for things to come during my custodianship. Nobody knew what could go wrong and if there would be parts available to fix it.
The 2.4 liter naturally aspirated inline five engine burbles with a throaty tone and, different to Audi or Volvo 5-cylinders that just get louder with climbing revs but don’t change tone much, the Lancia begins to sing and eventually peaks at a crescendo that always reminds me of Italian opera singers. The manual transmission is nicely sorted and shifts are smooth and crisp – probably due to components not being worn out yet at the low mileage. The wheelbase is 120 mm shorter than the limousine and wagon variants and this transforms the long distance cruiser character into a B-road connoisseur not afraid of bends and curves. Brakes are good too and the Recaro supplied seats with integrated side airbags are nothing short of amazing in offering both comfort and lateral grip – the perfect mix of Gemütlichkeit and Sportlichkeit.
I especially love the attention to detail the Lancia engineers came up with, such as the little rubber blobs preventing rattle noises between the sunshades and the third brake-light housing.
We took the Lancia k Coupé to some classic car events and it was astounding that most people looked curious, but didn’t dare to come over and ask questions. Those who did turned out to be really interested and wanted to know about, see and touch every little detail. All in all it felt like driving a non-rallye heritage Lancia is a rather solitary affair – which you may interpret as exclusivity if you are so inclined. It matched beautifully with my friends Mercedes-Benz C140, but looked rather clumsy next to another friends BMW 850i.
Whenever the lighting conditions allowed, I took moody pictures to highlight some of the design features, such as the C-Pillars which pay respect and give a nod to those of the Lancia Flaminia Coupé by Pininfarina from the early 1960’s.
What I did not enjoy was the anti-theft alarm that went off whenever the car was parked with the sunroof open. Even the slightest breeze triggered it and after consulting the owners manual I discovered that the system can be switched off entirely by turning a key in the trunk area. This also solved the mystery what the small key was for.
Necessary improvement to balance the proportions
On the way home from the initial test drive in February, we discussed the rather odd proportions and concluded that the coupé most certainly is under-wheeled and over-bodied. While being pretty, the original Speedline wheels are way too tiny and a little scruffy, just like the cute alley cat who joined an impromptu photo shoot.
This shall be fixed as soon as possible. The original Lancia brochure that came with the car included a separate Lineaccessori leaflet, with all the options available for the 838 Coupé in Germany. This helped immensely as there have been several 17″ and even 18″ wheel options available with official blessing from Lancia.
Availability is a relative term and rather not true anymore in 2022. The search began right away and fortunately a set of 17″ AZEV B with the correct size and PCD in good condition could be sourced, just an hour and a half away in Munich from a fellow Lancia Kappa Coupé and Thesis owner.
Good condition is not good enough for a perfect car, so off they went immediately to be fully refurbished by my trusted wheel restoration shop, who did a stellar job as always. After chemically stripping the wheels and repairing a few minor scruffs, they got repainted in silver. I opted for a CNC finished lip, to bring the aftermarket wheels to a Lancia-worthy level of detail. Some may argue that a polished lip would match better with the other trim of the car, but I have seen a set with polished lips and didn’t like the look on this particular wheel. A set of new tires and center caps with the traditional, period-correct Lancia shield nicely complement the job. TÜV approval would have proven a lot more difficult without the historic accessories catalogue and documents I obtained from the very friendly customer support team of wheel manufacturer AZEV. The lower sidewall profile and better quality tires certainly improved handling and braking, while not making it more prone to follow ruts in the road surface.
Wearing nice shoes made the overall appearance a lot more agreeable and the set of lowering springs mentioned in the brochure needed to be sourced next. Unfortunately the company mentioned in the catalogue never actually manufactured the springs, as demand was all but nonexistent. Spending € 3.500 on a custom made set of fully adjustable coilovers from KW Suspension wasn’t an option and a rather silly idea anyway, because the performance gains are not needed for such a luxurious barge. Converting the car to air springs would have cost just as much and the necessary drilling would have been sacrilege. Car enthusiasts in many other countries shall be happy to have cheaper solutions available. TÜV approval makes everything very expensive in Germany, and even if I’m a strong advocate for tested products that are safe at the high speeds at which we legally drive on the Autobahn, I tend to shy away from modifications that don’t suit the vehicles needs and/or don’t make sense financially.
Love at first modification?
Yeah nah yeah, as the Australians say. Purchasing the set of 17″ AZEV B and having them refurbished to match the condition of the 838 certainly was a great choice and the more substantial optical mass of the wheel face balances the proportions of the car somewhat, but 18″ would do that job even better. However, a set of 18″ AZEV C in the correct PCD only became available a year or so after I sold the car to a Lancia collector, where it now resides next to other precious vehicles from the same manufacturer – probably back on its stock Speedline wheels.
Love at last?
Kind of. I learned to appreciate the coupé more and more over time and came to the point of almost loving it. In retrospect while writing this article for Driven to Write, I begin to think I should have owned it longer to develop deeper feelings for it. Driving this rare vehicle is very special and always delivers a sense of occasion – even an otherwise mundane fuel refill is a wonderful experience because you can marvel at the finely crafted adjusting mechanism for the fuel lid, made from stainless steel. It lets you adjust the threaded magnetic fuel flap holder by turning it to align the lid perfectly with the flank of the car – and if you know anything about aerodynamics you adjust it a tiny bit further outwards to avoid wind noise. Engineering nerds’ heaven is often found in the details nobody else ever gets to see and the accountants red pencil be damned. Unfortunately I never took a picture of this mechanical masterpiece.
Do I miss it?
Yes and no. Yes, because it was an honour to be the custodian of such an exclusive, hand-built vehicle, with trim parts that look like chrome but are actually polished stainless steel and details no manufacturer will ever put into production again for fear of bankrupting them in the process. No, because it was my daily driver and only car for a beautiful summer and every journey included equal amounts of enchantment and worry (okay, let’s be honest here – it was fear) that something may break or somebody would crash into it, with parts availability being near zero it’s almost certainly going to be a write-off. I’m glad I could sell it to a collector and that it now enjoys a well-pampered life in a safe haven, being driven occasionally as a vehicle of this vintage should.
A slightly decadent old lady, as tsuklj1 so eloquently named her in his reply to Richard Herriotts’ DTW article about the Lancia κ Coupé, shouldn’t be driven daily without a back-up vehicle. This was probably my fault entirely and I could have kept her, but as she wasn’t old enough to qualify for much cheaper historical vehicle insurance and road tax for another couple of years, it was out of the question. I much prefer slim, lightweight roadsters and sports cars, so our romance was never really meant to be for the long term.
The journey ended as it begun by handing over the keys to the next custodian after one summer and almost 3.000 km at 127.580 km.
Would I do it again?
Not with an 838 Coupé because I have had that experience now and will cherish the memories, but there are other cars from Lancia available that I would very much love to sample…
The Lancia κ Coupé 838 is a car that took some getting used to but really grew on me. However, I was and still am glad that nothing went wrong. The extremely rare sunroof, lovely red interior,, shiny paint sparkling in all shades of grey, brown and gold and most importantly the sound track from the five pot up front ensured to create long lasting memories of a summer flirt that didn’t last longer. In hindsight I should probably not have sold it, but it opened up the possibility to purchase a dream I had been fostering for a long time. More on that in another story. Please let me know if you are interested in reading about it.
Sebastian Motsch | instagram @drivebysnapshots