Lancia Firsts

[Lima]

I use both a PC and an Apple on daily basis... but I'm a Mac fan 100 percent.  PC users and IT technicians get shot down by me when they slate the mac and insist that's it's on its way out.  I have 10 times as many facts and figures, innovations and the like to respond with in my arsenal of knowledge demonstrating why Apple is the better choice.  It's satisfying to counter the PC geeks, some of whom feel compelled to belittle the Apple without ever having used one.

I find the same is true with my cars.  I have a Lancia Fulvia and a Fiat Barchetta.  Both great cars, but I get silly jibes about driving Italian cars.  So here I hope to gather facts and figures to shoot down the non-believers at my next visit down my local.

I know that Lancia was
the first car company to install electrics to their cars
the first to use a Supercharger AND a Turbocharger? (as VW are planning to do with the new golf)
invented the narrow angle V engine with single block concept (take note VW VR6 owners)
invented the sliding pillar?

...and lots and lots of other firsts and interesting inovations:

Please, list here everything you know about Lancia, which we can all use to stop the lesser car pundits in their tracks when they joke about our beloved marque.

Marky

[Neil]

Mark, fellow Mac and enlightended user... I only use the other type for PC from the dark side for work purposes/door stops etc.
Other Lancia firsts I can remember the first production car with a monocoque-type body - Lambda, first full-production V6 engine - Aurelia, I am sure there are many others.

Neil

[lee69]

Interesting to see that you're both Fulvia drivers and mac users.  A fellow mac user here, besotted with the world of Apple also, only using PCs at work and for my business, because my Windows laptop was already paid for - when it dies, it will be replaced by some variety of mac.  I'm planning to use Airport Extreme to run my home network, any opinions and experiences welcome.  I wonder how many Lancisti are also mac-isti?

Other Lancia firsts I can think of (and stand to be corrected):

The Y10 was the first car to use the FIAT FIRE engine.

The Beta had transverse link rear suspension, a design that they didn't patent and Ford later used it on the Mondeo 20 years later.

As I point out to the non-enlightened when they joke about Beta saloons, if Lancia hadn't moved car design forward with the Beta we'd still be driving around in RWD Vauxhalls and Fords.  What a horrible thought....

Lee

[Sebastien]

As another Mac user I join your discussion to inform Lima that Lancia did not invent the sliding pillar front suspension. The same principle was already used by the voiturette manufacturer Sizaire in France before the first world war, indeed as early as 1900. However the spring was not concentric to the pillar, but was transverse.
Morgan on his first car in 1909, with his own sliding pillar also predated Lancias design.
Sebastien

[sparehead3]

I hate to say I don't use macs ... but I don't, haven't used an Apple for 20 years. Sorry (ducks down) but then my job is database design and build and the Mac isn't used for that.

Still, I use Linux ...

[Lima]

Linux is okay too, at least it's not a 'Gates' product.

On the LANCIA front, keep 'em coming... this is interesting for me (and hopefully others too).  And Sebastien, thanks for the correction - duly noted

[1,6 HF]

unless I'm mistaken, the Lambda was the first production car with independent front suspension (which is why inventing the sliding pillar matters).

[HPEHF]

I think you will find Lancia were the first to use twin spark plugs per cylinder - sorry any Alfa fans. This was on an Aero engine. does it still count??

Regards

Simon Davis

[fay66]

On behalf of non Mac users, (but I could be persuaded to change)
What do we do with all the GB's of information stored on one (or more) of Bill's products? I can't afford to start all over again as I don't think I have that many years left to do so so can it be transferred to a Mac easily? otherwise I shall have to stay with what I've got

Brian
6227

[peterbaker]

The Lancia Appia was the lowest powered car (38bhp) to win a gold medal on the Le-Jog (Lands End to John oGroats) rally. 

[YKR 567J]

Brian, there is hope. I started using Macs in about 1991 and bought my first one in 1996. I loved it and it still sits on my desk at home, but in those days few things that worked on PCs would also work on Macs. Nowadays it's quite different, and if you have Microsoft Office for Mac then the usual Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc documents usually work and graphics images aren't platform-specific anyway. Office for Mac is a Gates product, true, but in a PC-dominated world it's a necessary evil. As for email, Microsoft Entourage is simply a Mac version of Outlook.

Nothing would part me from the Mac Powerbook on which I'm writing this, and I regard PCs as instruments of the devil. Windows Vista is so needlessly overcomplicated that I can't understand how anyone could ever defend its kindergarten graphics and officious, Americanised pronouncements. Go on, get a nice new iMac!

And was Lancia:

First with a flat-four engine combined with front-wheel drive?
First to have rear disc brakes bigger than the front ones?

John Simister

[fay66]

Thanks John for the reassurance, food for thought there I believe

Brian
8227

[Neil]

Not really a first, but more of an achievement, Lancia the most successful rally team manufacturer 9 titles (?), from the Fulvia, Beta Stratos, 037, S4 and through to the all conquering Delta integrale.

As for Macs, I have no problem transferring documents from Mac to PC and back again with or without Bill's office product, I think the Mac has always been very compatible from the early days, I could not say the same for the other type of PC operating system.