“An unlikely outlaw,” is how Carfection’s Henry Catchpole describes this ravishingly protuberant Italian coupe. Indeed, you don’t see too many Lancia Aurelias lowered and chopped in the “outlaw” style. This car is unique, and seems to have multiple layers of coolness.
Actually, any Aurelia is pretty cool. This car had the world’s first production V6, not to mention an appearance in the O.G. Tintin comics, after all.
But the one featured in Carfection’s video here, as built by the Thornley Kelham shop, has an exceptionally interesting blend of race car industrialism and pure classic elegance.
The shop got some valuable perspective on how to lower the roof after restoring Giovanni Bracco’s racer which was chopped in a similar style… though my favorite feature might be the bonus windshield wiper mounted above the front glass.
“We painted the car black, then we painted it red,” Simon Thornley says with a laugh, “then we painted it black again to emulate what had happened to the car in period.”
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Now that is some hardcore nostalgia.
As for the car the video, it’s just a little bit more modernized, but it’s not really one color either– while it looks black and most of the shots in that video, it’s really more of an eggplant (or aubergine, as the Brits say) and it is spectacular.
Thornley Kelham must be on a kick of showing this car off to English automotive outlets, because CAR just posted a write up of it as well with some driving impressions and nice photos. Spoiler alert: “it’s good.” It will also cost you about half a million dollars if you want one done up like this.