Test drive Lancia Delta LPG: From Spain to Switzerland

We kick off the special test of the Lancia Delta running on LPG, a test we carried out across Switzerland over three days on a route where we could enjoy the car, the scenery and the cities.

But of course, the first step is getting to Switzerland from our country and crossing all of France to reach Geneva, the starting point of our journey. Today we’re going to review that entire route, along with our first impressions of the car, a Delta that we already anticipated has proven very comfortable for travelling and above all very economical.

Day 1: Vigo > Bayonne (France) [812 km – 8 hours]

Our starting point was Vigo (and not Madrid this time), although the distances are similar. The first day of travel was a rainy, rather grey day spent on Spanish motorways.

In Spain the LPG network is mostly in the hands of Repsol, yet there is still a need for more filling stations. We were lucky and managed to refuel in León and San Sebastián, trying to save as much as possible by using only gas and not touching the petrol.

The scenery on this stretch was quite grey, mainly because of the weather, which didn’t help on the first day. Things, however, changed in France.

Days 2 and 3: Bayonne > Geneva [878 km – 8 hours by motorway]

Our next leg could have been done in a single day, that is, crossing all of France by motorway towards Geneva, but apart from the toll costs (76 euros) the route would have offered almost no places to visit or roads on which to put the Lancia Delta to the test.

So we decided to split the route in two: Bayonne > Limoges and Limoges > Geneva.

The first part of the journey between Bayonne and Bordeaux is on motorways or expressways, without needing to use national roads that run through villages and slow the trip down considerably. Bordeaux is a good place to stop, since part of the city is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

If you travel through this area in summer or near September you’ll find roads winding around the extensive and famous Bordeaux vineyards, but in this month the vines were barely there and the villages we passed through looked almost deserted (nothing like the grape harvest season).

Near Limoges there is a very interesting route for switching off and discovering France’s rich heritage, called “Richard the Lionheart Route”, which runs around the city of Limoges along roads through fields, ruins and castles. It’s a good plan to do either by car or by bicycle.

If the route through fields and ruins doesn’t appeal to you, you can always visit Rocamadour, barely an hour from Limoges, in a setting that will undoubtedly surprise you.

Between Limoges and Geneva we crossed the central part of France, very rural and with fields everywhere. Mountains start to appear about 80 km from Geneva and the scenery becomes more interesting, with snow appearing too (luckily the weather was good and temperatures were high).

Just before reaching Geneva the area around Nantua is spectacular, with its lake that even freezes in winter, not to mention the landscape surrounded by high mountains. Geneva will be our starting point for the three-day route through Switzerland, passing through almost all the capitals of the Helvetic country.

Driving impressions

The first thing that catches our attention about the Lancia Delta is that it’s the new model, that is, it has exterior changes, although they are really very subtle. The first change at the front is the bumper skirts, which are now painted in body colour, while at the rear the exhaust has changed to chrome.

Inside the design remains the same, and by the way, so does the space. But new finishes and new upholsteries are introduced. Finally the biggest changes focus on more standard equipment and on the engine range, where there are only three variants: 1.6 Multijet 105 CV, 1.6 Multijet 120 CV and 1.4 Turbo-Jet LPG with 120 CV (this is our test unit).

Now that we know the novelties of the 2014 Delta range we turn to our test unit, an LPG Delta that debuts an engine, a small-displacement engine that, thanks to the turbo, delivers 120 CV, a powerplant paired with a six-speed gearbox.

The first thing we notice is that the 380-litre boot is very versatile, because it is deep and the rear seat backrests can be folded down to gain some extra boot space.

The driving position feels comfortable to us, although the lateral support of the seats could be improved; in our unit they are perforated leather (a nice touch). It also has a dashboard with a driver-oriented design and decent, quality materials that combine hard plastics in the more distant areas with a leather finish in the central zone.

That said, what really catches our attention is the level of integration of the LPG system. Without doubt, of all the cars we have tested, this is the first that fully integrates the LPG system into the instrumentation. Normally in other models you can tell it’s an add-on, with an external switch that connects and disconnects the LPG or a fuel-level gauge that is also external to the car.

But in the Delta it comes factory-fitted; in fact the LPG fuel-level gauge is integrated into the instrumentation (together with an icon that tells us whether we’re running on petrol or LPG), and to switch from petrol to gas we only have to press a button on the dashboard.

It even has a manual that explains all the details of LPG use, such as the tank capacity or the fact that it is only useful up to 80% since it is never filled to 100% for safety reasons, among other points.

Having covered the route and the car in this introduction, in the next article we get fully into the journey and continue telling you details about the Lancia Delta, which we have put through an in-depth test on Spanish, French and Swiss roads.

Photos | Diego G. Moreira and Test Team