Lancia is the Sleeping Beauty of the Stellantis sisters and at least outside of Italy, little has been seen or heard of the storied marque in recent years.
Group boss Carlos Tavares is now kissing the princess awake again and relaunching her as a smart supermini. The small car will debut in Italy this summer with prices expected to start at €24,000.
Lancia has not yet found a distribution partner in Germany and many other markets so the Ypilson will not appear there before until mid-2025. It will arrive in Belgium and the Netherlands later in this year, with Spain and France following.
The Ypsilon stands at 4.08 metres, some 20 centimetres longer than the last one, but much more spacious than its predecessor. It uses the same technology and underpinnings as the Opel Corsa or Peugeot 208.
All that considered, the Italians have managed to use familiar components to create a compact car with a distinguished look. After all, Lancia sees itself as being on a par with Audi or Mini and elegance was always a byword for the brand which spawned the Aurelia and Flaminia.
However, the premium ambitions ends with the drivetrain since this would-be luxury runabout has to make do with 115 kW/156 hp of urge, at least for the time being.
Next year Lancia plans to build on its sporting tradition with a hot HF variant with 177 kW/240 hp. Until then, the Ypilson can reach 100 km/h from a standstill in a leisurely 8.1 seconds and top speed is a modest 150 km/h.
The extra width compared to Corsa and Peugeot should lead to more stability on the road but this was not noticeable on the cobblestone test tracks at the firm's Turin HQ.
The Ypilson is easy to handle but every bit as nervous as any other small car. It follows grooves in the road and jars over potholes.
This is a shame since the Ypsilon has what it takes to venture out of the city. After all, there is a 54 kWh battery on board which should last for up to 403 kilometres.
However, patience is required before you can use it, since the car cannot sip more than 11 kW at the wallbox and 100 kW with direct current. Its cheaper competitors are much better in this respect.
On the inside, the oversize door handles stand out along with the 10.25-inch infotainment display, the "cannelloni"-style pattern on the seats and a table-like centre console designed to make the interior feel a little more like a lounge.
The colours on offer are nice too along with the sustainably produced door covers finished with marble dust effect, the gold-painted trim strips or the many different plastics around the steering wheel.
The sometimes sharp-edged surfaces are nothing to write home about though and just because it looks different doesn't make the Ypsilon better than other Stellantis minis. All that glitters is not gold.
And unfortunately, the Italians are not quite as progressive and future-proof as they like to pretend.
Lancia wants to become a purely electric brand at some point and the next new models will probably only come as battery-powered cars but the Ypsilon is still available as a combustion engine with a 74 kW/100 hp 1.2-litre petrol engine.
This is the only way to achieve the reasonably attractive entry-level price and maker charges an extra €10,000 for the electric version.
Of course, everyone deserves a second chance and Lancia now even deserves a third. But at a time when new brands are coming out of China almost every month, must every faded brand from Europe be revived? Perhaps not when it's difficult to tell the car apart from its Alfa Romeo and DS siblings.
There is an argument for letting this sleeping princess lie and retaining the past glory of Lancia as a fond memory.
