Originally Posted by axemansean
Not even close, the EVO came out just as the Integrale was on its way out. The Delta HF 4WD came out in 1986 and the HF Integrale came out in 1987, way before Mitsubishi or Subaru had a clue of what AWD meant.
Mitsubishi, Plymouth and Eagle all had AWD cars available in 1989. Lancia beat them to the punch, but the Syborg will crush that Lancia. Those are rare/non-existant. Anyone in the united states with one had to build it. Dodge, however... had Carroll Shelby build turbo 4-cyl cars on the Omni chassis in '86.
See it HERE:
http://www.xmission.com/~dempsey/shelby/sheldod3.htm
I dunno about forefather, but I will say Lancia was one of the first, and had some really good ideas.