Post-war Lancias were well-engineered and thrilling to drive, yet the styling of mass-production variants of models such as the Appia was, while attractive, rather conservative. This changed with introduction of the second-series Appia in 1956, which brought sharply tailored offerings from Italy’s celebrated carrozzerias. Of these, none emphasized the Appia’s sporting potential more successfully than the GTE by Zagato. It is believed that 153 of these Zagato-bodied second-series Appias were produced in total. Several saw competition—including, notably, an example co-driven in the 1959 12 Hours of Sebring by none other than Walter Cronkite!
