Coach class

Built for comfort rather than speed, the discreet Lancia B53 Allemano was an Aurelia for customers with lofty expectations

- MARTIN BUCKLEY

Amid all the excitement surrounding the new baby Lancia (the Appia) and the sensation of the Bertone BAT Alfa Romeo concept cars, the understated two-door Aurelia on the Allemano stand must have struggled to capture visitors' attention at Turin in 1953.

Allemano produced a sister pillarless fourdoor Aurelia along the same lines: both were one-offs, and would remain so. This Allemano Aurelia B53 was merely one of dozens of concepts and proposals you could have seen at Italy's premier automobile salon, in perhaps Turin's most frenzied period of creativity.

It was a city whose prosperity was largely based on a local ability to transform sheets of mild steel into attractive shapes. Labour was still relatively cheap, and hammer-wielding abilities were in the blood of the local talent, descendants of those who had fashioned Roman swords and armour centuries before.

When you consider the Aurelia, you tend to think of Pinin Farina and its B20GT coupé and B24 Spider. Allemano, in contrast, is a mere footnote in the Aurelia story alongside the likes of Balbo, Boneschi and Viotti, although the latter did gain some fame as the factory-sanctioned maker of Aurelia station wagons.

Founded in 1928 by Serafino Allemano, the carrozzeria acquired a certain notoriety in the post-war years when it was working with Giovanni Michelotti. This Turin show Aurelia, chassis B531008, is one of the prolific stylist's many creations - Michelotti also did half a dozen (or possibly more) one-off or short-run Aurelia bodies with his regular long-term body-making partner, Alfredo Vignale.