Italian car since 1907 / SUN 3-21-21 / Marvel group led by Hercules / Jupiter exempli gratia / Like many characters in Alison Bechdel cartoons / Food service industry lobby for short / Style of women's leather handbags / Longtime procedural set in Washington DC

• SLEEP IN THE BUFFET (23A: Nod off at a self-serve restaurant?)
• TRAILER PARQUET (34A: Fancy flooring for an R.V.?)
• COLD HARD CACHET (50A: What the prestigious ice sculptor had?)
• YOU'VE HAD YOUR FILET (69A: "Let everyone else get some steak before taking seconds!")
• LET'S MAKE A DELAY (88A: "We should stall!")
• BACKSTAGE PASSÉ (103A: Why no one hangs out in actors' dressing rooms these days?)
• UNSOLICITED BIDET (117A: Bathroom fixture that one never asked for?)

Lancia (Italian: [ˈlantʃa]) is an Italian car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis. The present legal entity of Lancia was formed in January 2007 when its corporate parent reorganised its businesses, but its history is traced back to Lancia & C., a manufacturing concern founded in 1906 by Vincenzo Lanciaand Claudio Fogolin. It became part of Fiat in 1969.

The brand is known for its strong rallying heritage, and technical innovations such as the unibody chassis of the 1922 Lambda and the five-speed gearbox introduced in the 1948 Ardea. Despite not competing in the World Rally Championship since 1992, Lancia still holds more Manufacturers' Championships than any other brand.

Sales of Lancia-branded vehicles declined from over 300,000 annual units sold in 1990 to less than 100,000 by 2010. After corporate parent Fiat acquired a stake in Chrysler in 2009, the Lancia brand portfolio was modified to include rebadged Chrysler products, for sale in most European markets. Lancias in the United Kingdom and Ireland were rebadged as Chryslers. As sales continued to drop the Lancia-badged Chryslers were no longer offered after 2015. Since then, the company's only product has been the Lancia Ypsilon, and sales outside of Italy ended in 2017. Despite Lancia's much smaller brand presence, the Ypsilon continues to be popular in Italy; in fact it was the second best-selling car there in 2019. (wikipedia)

I just couldn't, could Not, believe that in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-one I was doing a puzzle with so tired, so old, so hoary a theme as a simple add-a-sound. And with no ... oomph, no special twist, no nothin'. "A""A""A" over and over and over. And with such horribly mixed results. No, scratch that; not mixed. I didn't smile once at any of these themers. SLEEP IN THE BUFFET is probably the best, but since that's the answer that made me curse at my computer, it can hardly be considered a high point. I'm just bowled over by how completely unimaginative this theme is. And that it was accepted. At all. How can the puzzle be so great some days and so lost in mediocrity other days. He should stop bragging about how many submissions he gets if he can't even put up a decent Sunday puzzle once a month, let alone every week (which should be the standard). I'm trying like crazy to find bright spots anywhere in this puzzle, and I'm not having much success. I have never heard of the GOD SQUAD, but it's got some pep to it, some originality, so I guess that's OK (15D: Marvel group led by Hercules). And LESBIAN (82A: Like many characters in Alison Bechdel cartoons). Always happy to see Alison Bechdel, whose Fun Home is one of the greatest comics (ahem, "graphic memoirs") of this century. I wish they had just gone ahead and used the title of her long-running, ground-breaking comic about LESBIANs, but maybe "Dykes to Watch Out For" is a bridge too far, still, for the relatively staid NYT. Still, hurray for LESBIAN and for the Bechdel name-drop. The rest, yeesh. Yeeeeeeeesh.

Big trouble parsing, or even conceiving of, "I OWE YA!" (24D: "My treat next time!"). The clue suggests you bought me ice cream, but the answer is something you typically say re: a favor. Tough one. Also tough: LANCIA. Completely forgot that car existed. Reading the wikipedia entry about LANCIA, I see that there's good reason why I forgot that car existed. If only I lived in Italy, where people still drive it (?). For some reason I thought PEPPIEST would be a good answer at 87D: Most cheerful (PERKIEST), so that held me up a bit. I have no idea what the OCTOPI clue is on about (96D: Forms of some mythological sea creatures). Some? Which? What? I can't name even a one. I'm sure they exist, but what a completely unintuitive clue for an ordinary (if terribly pluralized) word. 

I will say that [Bob hopes?] is a good clue for APPLES. A very good clue. Took me a good deal of effort to get that, but the effort was rewarding. No idea what an "unsolicited bid" is, so the puzzle really ended with a sputter for me. Is that a bridge term? No, looks like it's just a literal description of a business thing. Huh. How ... exciting. I need to go listen to upbeat music or watch a Jean Arthur or ... well, do anything to get my spirits up again after this puzzle. Before sitting down to solve, I'd just watched a Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers movie. I was so happy then. Ah well. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. the NRA clue made me laugh. Not sure why you don't just eliminate it. That section can be redone a number of ways without NRA. No one's gonna look at NRA and think, "oh, right, the famous food service industry lobby." Still, glad they at least didn't go the usual route on this one because white supremacist terrorist orgs. don't deserve the ink. 

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