The new Lancia Ypsilon is a Peugeot 208 in a sharp Italian suit

Lancia is making a comeback, folks! Of course, you know this already because it's been teasing us with pictures of the new Ypsilon for a good while now. Plus, it hasn’t exactly got the whole secrecy thing down to a fine art – a prototype was driven into a lake during testing and a finished example was spotted filming for an advert in the middle of an Italian town. Oops. 

But anyway, forget that you’ve already seen it, because the Ypsilon has now been revealed in full. So, what do we think? Clearly just a Peugeot 208 in an Italian suit, isn’t it? But then, we’re not mad at that. The 208 is a good car and we don’t mind the dramatic front end that New Lancia has come up with. 

We’re told the styling applies the design language set out in the Pu+Ra HPE concept. Oh, and Lancia reckons those round taillights recall the Stratos, while the rest of the bodywork “features the soft, elegant, pure, and sensual shapes of the Aurelia and Flaminia”. Erm, right.

Anyway, this thing is also described as Stellantis’ first premium B-segment hatchback, and it’ll be the first of three new Lancia models with one launching every other year. The Ypsilon you see here will arrive first as a full EV but expect to see internal combustion iterations later down the line. 

It’ll also only be offered in Italy at first, with 1,906 examples of this top spec Ypsilon Edizione Limitata Cassina available to pay tribute to the year Lancia was founded. After that, Lancia will branch out to Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain and eventually Germany.  No word on whether the cars will make it to the UK yet, though. 

Ah yes, the car. The electric Ypsilon is promising a 154bhp motor and a 51kWh battery for 250 miles of range. So yes, confirmation that it’s a Peugeot e-208 / Vauxhall Corsa Electric underneath. 

It’s quite a bit posher than those two on the inside though. Cassina is an Italian designer furniture maker, so the interior of this special launch edition is supposed to look and feel like an Italian living room. Those velvet seats look exceptionally comfortable and apparently feature both heating and massage functions.

You’ve then got two large 10.25-inch displays for the dials and infotainment, and underneath the latter is a circular section that Lancia suggests is “the first coffee table seen inside a car”. Could it get any more Italian?

Sounds like there will be plenty of tech as standard too, with a parking assistance system, “Level 2 autonomous driving” (a la Tesla Autopilot or GM’s Super Cruise) and wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. 

“Lancia is now starting over from what we know best: Italy, the country where the brand was born over 117 years ago and to which it owes much of its success,” says brand CEO Luca Napolitano. “We begin with the Ypsilon, the record-breaking city car that has made history in our country's B segment.”