The Ardea was a simplified, miniaturised Lancia Aprilia, which just happened to be the world's finest family saloon of the '30s and '40s. Its fast-back shape was almost identical to its bigger brother's, but the Ardea featured a tiny, narrow-angle, 903 cc V4 engine (the Aprilia was 1.5 litres) with fuel gravity-fed from a tank under the bonnet. It dispensed with the Aprilia's advanced trailing-arm independent rear suspension in favour of a simple, leaf-sprung live rear axle. Early pre-war versions didn't even have an opening boot-lid - you had to stuff your luggage in behind the rear seat.
Although it was produced before the war, production didn't really get going until after the hostilities. At this point the Ardea gained not only a rear boot-lid but also a five-speed gearbox - a world first on a production car. Slow (67 mph flat-out) but very sweet, many Ardeas were built as pick-ups, vans and, surprisingly, large Rome taxi-cabs.
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