Lancia 12 cil V

The Lancia 12 cil V was a showpiece chassis that Lancia displayed at the Paris and London motor shows in the autumn of 1919. It carried a narrow-angle V12 engine cast as a single block and offered in two sizes, 7,841 cc and 6,032 cc, with overhead valves and, in the larger version, a reputed output of around 150 horsepower. It grew out of an eight-cylinder V engine that Lancia had shelved at the start of the First World War and patented in June 1915. Although the specialist press praised it, the twelve-cylinder never entered production: tax reasons, a home market not yet ready for its probably prohibitive price and carburation problems led Vincenzo Lancia to give up the idea.