This 1953 Lancia D20 is a 1/24 resin kit from Profil 24. First one complete for 2024. Not one of my better builds but at some point you have to get it off the bench and into the display cabinet.
An unusual car, apparently unrelated to any Lancia road cars of the time, and a perfect topic for Profil 24. As always kits from small cottage-industry kit makers reflect the passion and world view of the founders, and you had better be prepared to accept the quirks, such as the weak hubs for the wheels. I am considering fabricating these from brass tubes in the future...
Lancia made 7 of these, of which two were prototypes. This one, apparently the last one made, was driven to first place in the 1953 Targa Florio by Umberto Maglioli. In that race it ran with a 3 litre V6. The Italian version of Wikipedia implies the D20s all had inboard front drum brakes (!!) and a de Dion tube in the rear, but this kit doesn't have the detail to confirm this.
Four cars, including this one, were entered at Le Mans, all with a supercharged 2.7 litre V6 in place of the unsupercharged 3 litre. None finished; two suffered engine failures and a third lost the transmission, all perhaps due to excessively enthusiastic boost levels... the fourth (this car, in the hands of Maglioli and Taruffi) suffered electrical failure.
According to the Pininfarina website, four additional D20 chassis were converted to D23 Spiders; this led to the well-known D24. It's not clear if any of the original D20s survive.
Stay tuned, you never know what's next.
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