What are your top five Lancias? My list would include (in no particular order) the Flavia, the Aurelia, the Aprilia, the Fulvia and the Astura. Harder question: what are your three least favourite ones? Tough to pick among the many duds and misfires the marque put out in the past 40-plus years. The half-baked Gamma, the ungainly Delta II, the ridiculous badge-engineered Chryslers… Is there space in there for the Dedra? Maybe so. Let’s take a look at the best one you’re ever going to see and find out.
The problem with this Lancia starts with its name. What precisely is a Dedra? Nobody knows. This was a time when Lancia were going back to their infatuation with Greek letters, having gone through Beta, Gamma, Delta and Ypsilon. They did add the Thema to the range, which was not a letter of the alphabet, but definitely a word of Greek origin. “Dedra,” however, was merely Greek-sounding. It sort of worked in Italian, Spanish or French, but sounded weirdly close to (and is an anagram of) the word “dread” in English, or the Irish name Deirdre. Odd, but not necessarily a deal-breaker – there have been worse offenders.
The Dedra was launched in 1989 to replace the rapidly-aging Prisma (1983-89), which was itself the three-box version of the highly successful Delta hatchback. The platform was derived from the Fiat Tipo, but made to accommodate cars with more trunk space. Three models were to use this chassis: the Dedra, the Fiat Tempra (launched 1990) and the Alfa Romeo 155 (launched 1992).
The three variations of the same theme were dressed very differently and given clear niches to fill in the same segment. Fiat was the price leader, Alfa was the sporty one and Lancia was meant to exude luxury and exclusivity.
Styling was key to help tell these three cars apart – no cookie-cutter General Motors / British Leyland badge-engineering employed here. The Dedra was penned by none other than Ercole Spada, who had authored for Zagato some of the most iconic and distinctive creations of the ‘60s. But that was then, and though the Dedra’s aerodynamics were very good, the car’s looks were somewhat short of distinctive.
I mean, look at this profile. If I told you this was a Citroën Xantia, a Nissan Primera or a Seat Toledo with a few aftermarket bits, would you be able to tell the difference? At least, the Alfa 155 didn’t look like anything else, for better or worse. However, the Dedra is not aggressively ugly, unlike its Delta II derivative, launched in 1994.
Also in 1994, the Dedra HF Turbo got an Integrale (AWD) option; it was further given a slight facelift and the range now included a new body variant in the shape of the Station Wagon (or SW), designed by French coachbuilder Heuliez. The SW is actually rather more attractive than the saloon it was hewn from, but it did arrive late to the party, when the model was already over the hill.
Our particular Dedra is a relatively early example with the high-performance 2-litre Turbo engine, good for 165hp. That made it a pretty fast car, thanks to its slippery body. Most Dedras were far more pedestrian, though, with 1.6 and 1.8 litre petrol and the ever-popular (in its home country, anyway) 1.9 litre Diesel accounting for the great majority of sales.
Contemporary comments about the Dedra were unanimously positive as regards its interior comfort and materials, though how said materials were put together was not necessarily without fault. And Lancia cabins usually did not age too well, making this utterly immaculate one a true Tokyo miracle.
The Dedra was also commended for its spaciousness – not always a given, in this segment. Though there were a lot of very interesting rivals to ponder. This time, let’s look at what the lay of the land was like in the UK, where Lancia were still peddling their wares when the Dedra started its career.
Tough crowd, I think you’ll agree. And there were others besides to consider, such as the Citroën BX 19, the Honda Accord 2.2 or the Volvo 460 Turbo… They were cheaper than the Lancia, too. The sporty appeal of the Alfa, the Vauxhall, the Peugeot and the Nissan made it difficult for the Dedra Turbo to stand out of the crowd; lower-tier Dedras faced the same issue.
Despite the odds, the Dedra did pretty well in certain export markets, at least in the early ‘90s. Lancia managed to sell over 20k units in both France and Germany between 1990 and 1994 – far better numbers than the Prisma. After 1995, only Italian sales remained decent. By the time the final cars were sold off in January 2000, making way for the new Lybra, Lancia had manufactured over 400k units. It was a slightly better score than the Prisma, but over a notably longer production run.
In the final analysis, the Dedra was the last Lancia mid-range saloon that had a modicum of success. One always wants to root for the underdog, and Lancia is the ultimate black sheep of the Fiat family, but this is more of an ugly duckling than a black swan. Not sure where I’m going with all that menagerie of mixed metaphors, but as I said at the start of this post, I just cannot get excited about the Dedra. But someone in Japan obviously is, and that’s a good thing.
Related post:
Curbside Classic: 1995 Lancia Dedra – The Name Tells You Everything, by Roger Carr
I don’t mind most of the looks, but I hate the grille, there are lots of bits and pieces that feel borrowed without adding up to anything, and from certain angles it feels like Spada might have expected it to be bigger.
“Dedra” now makes me think of the Denise Gough character in the ANDOR show, space-fascist intelligence officer Dedra Meero.
Not a bad looking car, specs seem okay – but that name! Okay, I’ll admit we Aussies love making fun of the pretentious, but Dedra practically begs for some “Look what the dog dragged in” sort of comments. Imagine telling somebody you drove a Dedra!
Nope, should’ve been rebadged for English-speaking countries. Or – here’s a thought – since the name’s only fake Greek anyway, why not go back to the alphabet? Shame Opel already bagged Omega, and Mitsubishi used Sigma, but few people alive would be confused it they re-used Theta. I was going to suggest Omicron, but I see that was a bus. And you might not want a Lancia Pi.
Or, why not use a perfectly respectable real Greek word? There’s a whole language full of them.
Lancia Malaka?
Lancia Yassou?
Lancia Papadoupoulos?
Looks like a Volvo that couldn’t. A Lolvo, perhaps?
Looking at the table, you really wouldn’t, would you. Dedra on arrival.
In true CC effect fashion, here’s very nearly this exact car being tested by the likeable Youtuber Number 27 this very week.
I have not seen one of these in quite a number of years! The Dedra is quote forgotten nowadays, even here in their home country.
I have always thought the design decent compared to most of the competition, even though not particularly inspired.
I am not sure about Ercole Spada being the designer. Mario Maioli, who at the time was responsible for Fiat’s Design Center, in various interview stated that the design was done jointly between in-house and I.De.A Institute, whose chief was Ercole Spada.
I.De.A did realize the Master Model, but according to Maioli, Lancia put forward key design elements that shaped the final result, and there was no single responsible designer, but it was a team effort between Fiat (who had incorporated Lancia’s styling center) and I.De.A
Top five:
Fulvia
Stratos
037
Thema
Flaminia
I quite like it, but if I had to choose, I’d go with its successor, the Lybra. I know many say the opposite, that the Dedra was superior, but it’s a matter of taste.
The Dedra’s siblings, the Alfa 155 and the Fiat Tempra, are also very nice.
On my last trip to Italy, pushing 25 years ago now (!) my rental was the Fiat version of this car’s Lybra successor, a Fiat Marea. It was a model I’d never heard of but proved an exceptionally pleasant companion for over a week of travel on everything from Appenine passes to Autostrada to narrow medieval village streets. Even some gravel roads.
If I’m not mistaken, the Marea was built on the same Fiat platform that also produced the Lancia Lybra and the successful Alfa Romeo 156.
All very nice cars, it’s a shame they weren’t sold here in the US. Instead, we had German cars with a rough and rather unattractive design, like the Golfs and Jettas of those years.
The platforms were related but the Lybra was an evolution of the Marea’s, with different rear suspension, and longer wheelbase. The 156 was also related but had different front and rear suspension compared to both the Fiat and Lancia
I don’t mind the looks (and love the color), but feel that Nissan/Infiniti seems to have looked at it and then fettled the shape a but to result in the Primera/G20 whose looks I very much like. You’re correct that half the market seems to look very similar, and can probably add Jetta III to that as well a couple of years down the road. No surprise that I like ALL of them…when you have a type…if anything, the Dedra is just a smidge too narrow, a couple of inches more width would do wonders for it, as it (without actually looking up anything) seems to be the case with most of the others.
Love it or hate it, you’re not going to see too many others of its ilk anymore, even in Tokyo!
The Deadrat’s problem really stemmed form it being a C-segment with a boot trying to compete with proper C/D segment platforms for rich money. It’s like trying to make the Audi 80 out of a Jetta/Vento/WTF it was called that time around.
Being engineered to a lower price point meant the squeaks and rattles and the usual Italian shoddy trim that fell apart. The others could afford to put a bit of cost into their platforms, never mind the Japanese three…
The design itself is quite pretty, but it’s grafted onto rather practical hard points – it’s roomy because it’s very tall & slab-sided with gawky overhangs to try to make it look big & posh. The Delta version worked far better in that regard, other than the rear end was incredibly poorly-resolved around the hatch area.
Ironically, the Jaguar X-Type suffers from the same gawkiness, despite being based on a proper-sized CDW27! The 50mm wheelbase crop is probably part of it. That had to be so no-one would spot how badly-packaged DEW98 was under the S-Type…
Anyway, something was amiss because after the Prisma’s threat to rescue Lancia from oblivion, it rapidly sank into oblivion. Taking a FIAT that looked like a baked potato, broughamising it and calling it a Labia was an act of penury or cynicism – or both. Might as well have taken a Neon and – oh, hang on…