Lost Cause Lancias: New Stratos and Old Hyena

Recently I heard there were plans for a revived Lancia Stratos, a car that dominated the World Rally Championship (and the dreams of many car enthusiasts) in the 70s.  The original Stratos* is shown in Stradale (street) version  below...

...and here as a pre-production prototype in phosphorescent orange.  Kind of noticeable, isn't it?

  

The New Stratos is the product of ex-Pininfarina exec Michael Stoschek's program.  His goal was to produce a modern interpretation of Marcello Gandini's original design, built by the great coachbuilding house of Bertone in enough copies (492) to qualify it for the World Rally Championship, which the car won in 1974, '75 and '76.  The new car echoes the old one's proportions, wedge profile and windshield wrapping into the side windows, originally said to be inspired by a racing helmet.  The project began in 2008, and the plan was to offer the new car with a Ferrari V8 engine.

The new car follows studies and full-scale mockups made at Pininfarina. Sadly, Bertone, maker of the original bodies, ceased operations in 2014.  Even more sadly, Ferrari, which became independent of Fiat (and thus disassociated from Lancia) by way of a stock offering in 2016, declined to provide engines for the new car.  So anyone wanting a New Stratos will need to supply around $617,000 as well as a Ferrari 430 Scuderia donor car to Brose GmbH, Mr. Stoschek's firm. It would be an understatement to say that this arrangement may impede supply of the New Stratos, as well as demand for it. One of the bittersweet aspects of getting old is that eventually nearly everything that happens reminds you of something you've seen already, and the New Stratos story reminds this writer of the Lancia Hyena saga from over a quarter century ago. It was 1992, and it feels like yesterday...

Back then, the all-wheel drive Lancia Delta Integrale was doing a good job of reviving Lancia's fortunes in rally competition and in showroom sales.  But it was a boxy sedan, and Dutch car dealer Paul Koot had the ideal that a lighter, 2-seater version of the chassis could make inroads into Porsche territory.  The rounded Zagato prototype, reminiscent of Zagato's early 1960s designs, made its debut at the 1992 Brussels auto show.  The initial plan was to build a series of 500 Lancia Delta Hyena coupes, though Zagato had production capacity for only 75.  This became a moot point when Fiat refused to sell chassis to Koot, meaning that to produce the cars, he had to buy complete Lancia Delta Integrale sedans, remove the bodies and then get Zagato's team to work their magic.  The result was a much higher cost per car than planned, and only 25 completed cars. This is, coincidentally, now the number of cars that Mr. Stroschek envisages building...

History has repeated itself in other ways.  The original Stratos HF prototype was tested with a Lancia Fulvia V4 and even a Beta (Fiat-based) inline 4 before Enzo Ferrari finally agreed to release copies of his Dino V6 for the project.  Perhaps he had a short memory; Juan Manuel Fangio had won a World Championship in 1956 with Lancia D50s (re-badged as "Lancia Ferraris") donated to Ferrari by the then-bankrupt Lancia team*.  Today, while Fiat Chrysler restricts Lancia offerings to a single "high fashion city car" based on Fiat underpinnings, and invests big money in making separate makes out of Ram (Dodge trucks) and SRT (Chrysler performance cars), a restored classic Lancia Aurelia Spider will set you back close to $2 million at auction, and a good original Stratos will take upwards of $600,000. Corporate auto industry execs talk about "heritage", but they frequently throw away hallowed institutions as if they were used Kleenex (think MG and now Lancia). Meanwhile, in England, Lister Bell offers kits to build your own Stratos replica, with dimensions and chassis layout closely approximating the original, and V6 engines sourced from the Alfa Romeo 166, though they allow that installation of various Italian V8s will also be entertained. They can even be persuaded to build you one if you lack space or tools, or are somewhat ham-handed, like me.  Quoted costs are vastly less than the probable bill for a New Stratos. It appears that when more affordable Lancias are built, the British will build them...

*Footnotes:

Further  notes on the Lancia HF rally cars appear in this blog in "Hi-Fi: Racing Red Elephants" from October 3, 2016.  The D Series Lancia race cars are discussed in "Prancing Elephants: Lancia's D Series in the Heroic Days of Road Racing", from October 8, 2016.

*Epilogue:
I encountered a prototype New Stratos at the Concorso Italiano in August 2018.  The first production car is being delivered to a customer late in 2019.

Photo credits:
1st, 2nd, 5th & 6th from top:  wikimedia
3rd from top:  Brose GmbH
4th:  the author
Bottom:  listerbell.com