You're old enough to remember the Stratos?



I haven't even heard anybody mention one for years and years.



No idea why anybody'd want one, seriously. They are extremely unreliable and twitchy on the road to the point of being dangerous for a normal driver.

It only worked for the championship because a FIAT/Lancia team travelled around with every car.

 

I'm gonna hafta agree with this.

Although I appreciate the "spirit" of Lancia, their overall reliability and excellence of design when compared to cars we normally have over here is...well...let's not cut corners and call it abyssmal.

You can't rely on the electrics, and they really don't have a clue about how to design a suspension. Motor bottom ends are bulletproof...but that hardly makes up for the problems.

Don't forget why FIAT/Lancia can't be sold in the US, too. Better look into that before you support a company like that.

 

When I was 15, my brother and his college roommate bought a Lancia Beta in Tennessee for $400. They called it "The Universe", because everything in the world was wrong with it. There isn't one quality-constructed anything on a Lancia Beta.

But that Stratos is a whole different story... It weighs nothing... like maybe 1200-1300lbs tops. It's supposed to be lighter than the original Mini, and it's in Gran Tourismo, too. Those were actually fast little death-traps.

 

That's an apt description.

 

:slap: Hold thy tongue.

When you were in diapers, this car was kicking felonious quantities of ass on the Group B Rally Circuit.

Without the Integrale's (and 037's) proven record, it's doubtful Subaru and Mitsu would have bothered with four wheel drive in the first place.

Give respect where it's due. :rant:

 

h: Yes. Although they were out of production for a few years.
Plus, having gone through the Academy of Art College...I've done a bit of research on the Italian design houses, Pininfarina, ItalDesign, Bertone...

I think the appeal of the Stratos lies in that ethereal region outside the realm of logic, it's visceral and emotional in a way that blinds people to the car's [admittedly substantial] flaws.

Only the Italians could get away with something like that. :chuckles:

 

Lancia to me is synonymous with rallying, I remember those days as a kid sitting in front of the black and white tv watching the rally races with my Lancia models cars going whee everytime they made a jump. Sure they were finicky cars but they were champions on the rally roads.

 

When I hear Lancia, I always think of Tamiya's:
http://tinyurl.com/56lau

 

For me, it was a Magnavox Color TV, the Paris- Dakar Rallye, and those unstoppable Peugeot 205T16s...:happysad:

 

I miss those days when rallying wasn't so sterile and the perils made the drivers appear almost deity like.