It's not often that a new concept car takes us by surprise, and ever so slightly blows us away, but Lancia has done just that with the new Pu+Ra HPE.
The Pu+Ra HPE is more or less a pure concept (don't expect to see a production model looking like this any time soon), but its styling cues and some of the ideas from it will become a production reality. A production reality for Irish customers? That is likely a longer shot - nothing has been confirmed for the UK or Irish markets as yet, but Lancia has said that it is returning to France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and The Netherlands, having been an Italy-only brand for several years.
A return to pomp and brilliance
Indeed, Lancia had become a faint shadow of its former self, selling only the outdated Ypsilon small car - to a surprisingly strong legion of adoring Italian buyers - but now the time has come for a full brand reinvention, and - one hopes - a return to the pomp and brilliance of Lancia of old.
Certainly, the Pu+Ra concept suggests as much. The HPE badge, for example, is lifted from the Beta HPE - or High Performance Estate - of the 1970s and 1980s, but in this case the HPE name stands for High Performance Electric. Lancia is set to become an all-electric brand, and while the Ypsilon supermini will get a hybrid replacement, courtesy of being based on the current Fiat 500, it will be fairly short-lived as, from 2026, the plan is for Lancia to launch only all-electric models.
At the rear of the Pu+Ra concept, you can see clear influence from the Lancia Stratos. The razor-edged kicked-up rear spoiler and the circular lamps are throwbacks to the hip-high 1970s rally car - one of Lancia's most iconic cars of all.
Further forward, the dramatic y-shaped LED nose arrangement is a little less easy to pinpoint but you can see some influence from 1950s and 1960s Lancias if you squint a little.
Circular theme
There's a distinct circular theme, with a circular roof panel and inside, a circular carpet for the cabin. The interior also gets a pair of dramatic-looking deep bucket seats, clad in yellow velvet and designed for the car by Italian luxury furniture brand Cassina, inspired by that brand's Maralunga armchairs, designed by Vico Magistretti.
There's also a huge semi-circular dashboard, made of a single sheet of glass, and even little round side-tables for the passengers, indicating that Lancia is at least nodding in the direction of full autonomous driving.
All of the interior has been designed around sustainable materials, with Lancia saying that 70 per cent of the surfaces you touch in the cabin are innovative, recycled and recyclable materials. The door panels are covered with Marm/More; a material whose name is taken from marmor, the Latin word for marble. It's made of 50 per cent waste from marble dust and recycled fabric, produced using natural colours, soft to the touch and waterproof.
The interior wood veneers have all been hand-made by traditional cabinet makers, rather than just pressed together in a factory, and that circular rug, made from wool, is said to involve no waste products at all in its making.
Even the green colour is a nod to both the past and the future - obviously, it's meant to underline the car's 'green' credentials, but it's also inspired by the Lancia Flaminia Azzurro Vincennes, a classic colour from the 1950s.
More importantly, the Pu+Ra gives us an idea of where Lancia - and the broader Stellantis Group - is going with its electrification project. We can presume that the Pu+Ra is designed around the new STLA electric car platform, and Lancia says that it has been engineered to provide a 700km range, a charging time of just over ten minutes (we presume that's to 80 per cent, not a full charge) and energy consumption of less than 10kWh per 100km - for reference, the best medium and large cars right now tend to average around 18kWh/100km in mixed driving conditions.
To help with that, Lancia points out the low roof, aero-styled wheels, digital rear-view mirror cameras and even the tyres, specially made for the car by Goodyear, which have aero-efficient sidewalls.
Minimalist infotainment system
There's also a clever infotainment system, called SALA, which stands for Sound Air Light Augmentation (but also references the Italian word for room, sala). Lancia says that this is a "minimal and smart virtual interface, bringing together the audio, climate control and lighting functions. The driver and passengers can therefore adjust the car's interior environment simply by tapping a button, or even with the sound of their voices." Because the dashboard has been designed to be almost instrument-free, there's a small digital screen built into the steering wheel for vital information, and a head-up display too.
Apparently, the new Lancia Ypsilon will be the first model to get the SALA system in production. It will platform-share with both the combustion-engined and all-electric Fiat 500s, so expect an electric version with a range of around 300km when it goes into production shortly.
"Today Lancia presents Lancia Pu+Ra HPE, the brand vision for the next ten years that takes the brand into the era of electric mobility and sums up our way of conceiving and experiencing the car. Starting with the new Ypsilon, our cars of the future will be inspired by the Lancia Pu+Ra HPE," said Luca Napolitano, CEO of the Lancia brand.
So, what are the chances of Lancia coming back to Ireland? They're probably pretty slim right now. Gowan Auto - importer here for the Stellantis brands, aside from Maserati - will have its hands full re-establishing the likes of Jeep, Fiat and Alfa Romeo, so Lancia, a name forgotten by many, will at the very least be a much longer-term strategy, if at all. Then again, if the revival of Lancia becomes a big hit in Europe, and more importantly the UK, then there's certainly a chance.