1936 Lancia Belna cabriolet Paul Née

1936 Lancia Belna cabriolet Paul Née

The Lancia Augusta is a small passenger car produced by Italian car manufacturer Lancia between 1933 and 1936. It made its première at the 1932 Paris Motor Show. The car was powered by a 1,196 cc Lancia V4 engine.

During the 1920s, Lancia had been known as producers of sports cars and middle sized sedans: the smaller Augusta represented a departure from that tradition, and contributed to a significant growth in Lancia's unit sales during the 1930s. Nevertheless, in terms of volumes sold, the Augusta was overwhelmed by Fiat's much more aggressively priced 508 Ballila.

Lancia started its French operations on 1 October 1931. At its first factory outside of Italy, at Bonneuil-sur-Marne, Lancia built the Augusta and later Aprilia models, although named them Belna and Ardennes. Approximately 3,000 Augusta/Belna and 1,500 Aprilia/Ardennes were built.

Of the approximately 3,000 Belnas built between 1934 and 1938, 2,500 were saloons and 500 bare chassis.

Georges Paulin had invented the retractable hardtop and subsequently sold it to French coachbuilder Marcel Pourtout. Carrosserie Pourtout built several models based on the French-built Lancia Belna.

This elegant Lancia Belna four-seater convertible's serial number confirms that it was a base for convertible coachwork. The body is attributed to Paul Née, though the vast majority of convertibles on this chassis base were made by Pourtout. The lines are significantly more fluid and examples of this type are very rare, at the most a dozen surviving across the globe.

Descriptions and pictures by wikipedia & artcurial & flickr