TAKING IT HOME

What better destination for a road trip than the Lancia family villa in northern Italy? Mark Dixon explains why this was a particularly emotive journey

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The steep and winding drive up to the house is a series of hairpins but we've found that, if you judge the approach right, the Lancia Lambda will get round each of them in one.

That's no coincidence. The house in northern Italy is known as Villa Lancia, and it was owned by the Lancia family from the 1840s until just a few years ago.

Villa Lancia is now in the care of two British vintage car enthusiasts, who heard it was for sale on a previous Lancia club visit. One of them is Nick Benwell, a Lancia specialist, and he is quite certain that the driveway was laid out so that Vincenzo Lancia could make it to the top in his own Lambda. 'There's a story that Vincenzo was trying to get to his mother at the house in one of his earlier cars, and broke a spring, which impelled him to introduce the Lambda's independent sliding-pillar front suspension - and to sort the driveway out,' explains Nick.

We've just driven here from the UK in a 1927 Lambda Series VII and the reason for our trip is bittersweet. The owner and restorer of this beautiful Lambda, Ian Bingham, lives close to me; we went to Reims Autojumble together in March 2025. In the April he was suddenly diagnosed with brain cancer, which means he can no longer drive and needs to sell the car. He tires easily, and the doctors weren't sure he should embark on such an arduous journey - but he remains relentlessly positive, and reckoned it would do him more good than harm. And what could be better than to take the Lambda back to its maker's home in Italy?