1988 Lancia Thema 8.32: Not what you expect

Look, I’ll be honest. I really had no idea about the Lancia Thema 8.32 until a work colleague forwarded me the ad for this glorious 1988 example. I had only briefly heard about the illusive Italian through Top Gear- but I never really paid much more attention to the rather bleak looking sedan.

But, after diving down a deep Lancia Thema 8.32 rabbit hole, I emerged, now knowing what all the fuss is about. This is undeniably a cool car.

So what is it that makes this seemingly boring car so cool?

The 8.32, was a front wheel drive (not a typo), 2.9 Litre Ferrari V8 powered mid size sedan. The front wheel drive/V8/performance combo was somewhat unique, probably for good reason. The Americans did build a few Chevrolet’s and a Mondeo that followed the same recipe, but most weren’t met with much love.

But there was more to it than that.

Like how it had an early form of Active Aero. Or that Enzo Ferrari used one as his personal transport before he died. Or that it used the same architecture as the Saab 9000. Or that Ducati actually built the engines. Such a weird unit.

The Lancia-Ferrari partnership meant it was somewhat of a pre-cursor to cars such as the Porsche-affiliated Mercedes 500e and Audi RS2. Two cars that shared a similar recipe, in that they were sedate family haulers tinkered by an affiliated sports car company.

8.32’s were hand assembled in their own facility, had an interior trimmed by a opulent Italian Furniture maker, and sound as good as you think they would. The ultimate sleeper in more ways than one.

This particular 1988 Lancia Thema 8.32 has to be one of the only ones in Australia, and it is a good one (thank fuck). If you are incredibly game, you can find this immaculate Lancia Thema 8.32 for sale on Carsales here for $42.5k.

1988 Lancia Thema 8.32: In the owners own words

Lancia Thema 8.32 series 2
1988 (89reg)

$42,500 AUD

Very rare and unusual car. The Lancia Thema was the family sedan of the range in the 80s, but Lancia had a brainstorm one day, and went a little crazy. Despite already having the reasonably potent 2.0 turbo, and a 2.8 And 3.0 V6 in the range, they got all spaghetti headed and thought it would be a great idea to shove another 3.0 litre engine in it. Not any old 3.0 litre this time.. but ones left over and stolen from the Ferrari production line intended for the 308 QV, and they sent them off to Ducati for some tampering!

They thought they’d throw some more throttle bodies at it, and change the crankshaft from a flat plane high revving item, to the 90 degree extra torquey style crank as found in Maseratis and most other V8.

Then… get this…. they protected the entire body shell with zinc to prevent rust, just like the Ferrari 328 series, and just for added extravagance, they installed a luxurious interior made of the finest poltrona frau leather and a handmade wooden dashboard facia and various trim of alcantara.

They then emptied the entire contents of their instrument supplies into it. More gauges than the Star ship enterprise.

Still not content, they added speedline wheels, ABS brakes, magnetic particle shock absorbers with sports and comfort switchable setting, a fuel cooler to prevent fuel evaporation in hot climates linked to the air conditioning pipe work, a limited slip differential, and then they tuned the understeer and torque steer to surprisingly well managed levels by giving it electrically adjusted variable power steering and by making the driveshafts have equal articulated lengths supported by an intermediate bearing.

And wait, there’s more…..around 20 years before Bugatti realised it was a good idea… The tipsy boffins at Lancia decided the 8.32 really was rather fast (and despite incorrect assumptions, it can be a bit taily if running fast with bodies in the boot.).. at 149mph or 240kmh, so they’d give the 8.32 active aero… and added a driver switchable cantilevered collapsible boot spoiler that can operated at any speed upon request by the driver.

They decided this car wasn’t for the poor, so priced it stratospherically as some kind of joke, a joke that less than 4000 people got. And only 1600 of those got the series 2 joke which was even more expensive again.

This car is not for normal people, nor mainstream people, nor boring people. Nor vain people, nor pretentious people, nor delicate snowflakes and most definitely not for climate change alarmists and do-gooding greenies, oh no no no. In fact, it’s so weird, that Rowan Atkinson, Mr Bean himself, drove one for ages and only recently sold it for 30k Euro plus auction fees. Enzo Ferrari even drove and/or was driven around in one

Other 8.32s in similar, but typically worse, condition in Europe are fetching between 18k and 30+k Euro now, making them easily a 50k+ AUD proposition to import.

This particular car, I’ve owned for around 11 years, maybe more if I cared to look it up accurately. It was new in Japan where it covered only 60k km until I bought it, and put it on VIC club permit, and I have since done another trouble free 6k km on top. It’s in lovely original condition, having never been damaged or repaired or even had any stone chip repairs done. The original hand painted coachlines are still in good order and there is no rust. The spare wheel and tyre are un-used from new. Any inspection welcome.
I’ve put new tyres on it, new brakes, I’ve done the cambelts twice since I’ve owned it and will install new ones again and give it a fresh service for the buyer. I’ve had made a beautiful custom stainless steel tig welded cat-back exhaust in a tribute to how Ansa would have done it. I’ve tidied up some deteriorating plastic interior parts by covering with additional alcanta.