One of the most exciting driver’s cars ever built, the Lancia Stratos is an icon of both design and motorsport. It was born out of Lancia’s need for a new rally car, and was designed specifically for that purpose. This made it the first car designed from the ground up to go rallying.
Lancia had previously rallied the front wheel drive Fulvia, which had been quite successful in the mid to late 1960s, but was being outclassed by the rear-engined rear wheel drive Alpine A110 by the early 70s. At the same time, Bertone happened to display an arresting wedge-shaped concept car at the 1970 Turin Motor Show. While it had nothing to do with Lancia officially, it used a Lancia Fulvia running gear mounted amidships and was badged as a Lancia. Called the Stratos Zero, it was styled by Marcello Gandini and was impossible to ignore. Lancia chairman Ugo Gobbato phoned Bertone and asked them to bring the car around (Lancia and Bertone were both in Turin), so Nuccio Bertone drove it across town to the Lancia factory, where the astonished gatekeeper took a moment before raising the gate so he could drive in. Not that it was necessary, the car was low enough to pass beneath the barrier, and this is sometimes reported although not when Mr. Bertone himself recounts the story.
The noise of the engine was enough to draw out the Lancia racing team and Bertone was quickly signed up to design the actual rally car. Drivers and engineers were surveyed and their feedback collated and fed back to the engineers, who then created the ultimate rally car. It had a short wheelbase and short, upturned overhangs (to clear roadside obstacles while sliding past them sideways), plus fully adjustable long-travel suspension that was extremely robust. Bodywork could be easily removed for rapid roadside repairs, while the upper rear section of the chassis was bolted in place so that it could be quickly removed to speed up engine changes.
The exterior of the car was equally remarkable, with striking styling again by Marcello Gandini. The car was still without an engine, although it would likely come from within the Fiat Group since Lancia had been acquired by Fiat in 1969. Early publicity material suggested the car would be available with both the Aurelio Lampredi-designed Fiat twin cam engine (as used in the 124, for example), and Ferrari’s 2.4 liter V6 as used in the Fiat Dino and Ferrari 246 Dino.
Within Lancia, the preference was for the Ferrari engine, although it took years before approval finally arrived from Ferrari to guarantee the supply. This was particularly essential because a minimum of 500 roadgoing examples would need to be built in order for the car to be properly homologated to race as a production-based car in Group 4. The race ready Stratos was available well before the 500 cars had been completed and so it initially raced as a prototype. In reality, the 500 cars were never built, but racing team director Cesare Fiorio became so desperate that he applied to the sanctioning body, the FIA, for homologation anyway. Fortunately the inspector, Paul Frere, was charitable when he arrived for the inspection, and concluded that Lancia had done well enough and so ultimately only 492 Stratos were built.
The car was homologated to race on 1 October 1974, quite literally the day before (perhaps not by accident) the Italian World Rally Championship event, the Rallye Sanremo, which the car promptly won. Although it was already October, Lancia calculated that if they did well in every remaining event of the season, combined with the 3rd place points scraped together at the Safari Rally in Kenya in an outdated Fulvia in April, they had a chance at winning the championship for 1974. Stratos were duly entered in every remaining WRC event for the year, and Lancia managed to win the championship. The Stratos went on to win the World Rally Championship again in 1975 and 1976 before it was de-prioritized by Fiat in favor of the new Fiat 131 rally car, which more closely resembled cars customers could buy and was thus more consistent with corporate goals.
The roadgoing Stratos was built with little enthusiasm and even less success. Lancia built them because they had to, not even bothering to certify them for some European markets, let alone the US market. New roadgoing examples of the Stratos sat around unsold for years, but today’s enthusiasts are the beneficiaries of this because nearly 500 of these cars were built, which are among the most exciting road cars ever made. The single-mindedness of the car, especially the chassis, coupled with the brilliant Ferrari powertrain (which moves hundred pounds less in the Stratos than it does in the 246 Dino), makes it a thrilling road car. That it also has genuine world-beating competition heritage and is also an icon of automotive design is further icing on the cake. The cars also represent superb value, costing similar money to the 246 (of which approximately 2,500 examples were built).
This particular example is an extremely original unrestored car which has covered 22,000 kilometers from new. Retaining its original paint and engine and with exceptional patina, the car is extremely undisturbed and well-documented, with known history from new and an extensive file of documentation. The cylinder heads were rebuilt in 2002, and the car received considerable sorting work in recent years, by both DK Engineering in the United Kingdom, and more recently GTO Engineering in Los Angeles, California. The car comes with its original tools and books, including libretto, foglio complementare, stamped maintenance booklet (with service card showing original owner’s name and address), and owner’s manual.
