When the Lancia Flavia Berlina went into production in 1961, the in-house design team may have taken the saloon’s name a bit too literally, as the somewhat rectangular saloon wouldn’t have looked out of place in East Berlin.

Lancia therefore commissioned two design houses; for the Coupé they used Pininfarina, and for the Convertible, Vignale under the penmanship of Giovanni Michelotti.

Whilst his Ferraris are celebrated today as works of art, with prices to match those of any old master, he was also one of the most democratic of all contemporaneous designers, applying the same level of flair and passion regardless of the “list price”, his cars were to be as pretty as the women they were intended to attract.
 
Just 1,600 Vignale Convertibles were produced with a mere 40 examples allocated to the UK in right-hand drive.

The price may well have had something to do with that, for in 1963 a Lancia Flavia Vignale Convertible was listed at £2,685 against £1,913 for an E-Type Roadster and t...