This is probably the most unusual unofficial premiere of a new car model: yesterday morning the pre-production fifth-generation Lancia Ypsilon was lifted from the bottom by a mobile crane Duron-Au-Rhine canal in the French commune of Montbéliard.
The official premiere of the new Ypsilon will take place in February next year in Milan, but camouflaged prototypes of the fifth-generation hatchback have already been captured by spy photographers more than once, and yesterday One of the pre-production cars with a minimal number of camouflage stickers was taken out of the city canal in Montbéliard — its photographs were published by the French newspaper l'Est Républicain.
The newspaper reports that the car was stolen, but local police did not release details and an investigation is underway. How the car ended up in the canal is also unclear: the canal itself is shallow, so, fortunately, there were no casualties as a result of this accident (divers carefully examined the bottom of the canal), the thief, apparently, got out of the car and ran away.
< p>We can now state that the new Ypsilon is a rather elegant 5-door hatchback with a sloping rear, the rear door handles are integrated into the C-pillars. The Lancia press service responded to the incident by publishing another teaser of the new Ypsilon (header photo), which shows part of the front end, made in the style of the Lancia Pu+Ra HPE concept presented last spring. In November, Lancia released teasers of the interior of the new Ypsilon, featuring luxury trim from designer furniture maker Cassina.
Let us remind you that the new Ypsilon is built on the French modular CMP platform; it will be offered with a choice of fully electric and hybrid power plants. The debut version will be electric, it was named Lancia Ypsilon Edizione Limitata Cassina, it will be released in an edition of 1906 copies in honor of the year Lancia was founded. With the new Ypsilon, the Lancia brand will return to the large European market (now its cars can only be bought in Italy).
The new Ypsilon will be produced in Spain at the Opel plant in the city of Figuelas (province of Zaragoza) together with the Opel Corsa platform hatchback generation F. By the way, the Opel Corsa just recently acquired a hybrid power plant — the new Ypsilon will obviously have the same.
In 2025, the Ypsilon will have a sports version HF. The letters HF stand for High Fidelity and mean high performance; in the last century, Lancia widely used them to mark its sports models, but Ypsilon did not have an HF version before.
In 2026, Lancia will add an electric cross to its lineup — the Gamma liftback, in 2028 — the Delta electric hatchback, and in the same 2028 Lancia plans to completely switch to electric vehicles, that is, the production of “hydrocarbon” versions of Ypsilon will be curtailed.