Random Car Review: Lancia Delta HF Integrale, Italian Insanity On A Low Dose Of Medication


Random Car Review: Lancia Delta HF Integrale, Italian Insanity On A Low Dose Of Medication

(HF Integrale photos: eBay/thebarnmiami) Lancia and rally racing: together it’s a beautiful thing. From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s Lancia could do no wrong in rally, even if the odds were stacked against them. The Stratos was a tiny little wedge of a car with a screamer of a V6 originally destined for the Ferrari Dino that became a rally legend and icon. The 037 was Lancia’s insane Group B racer and is notable as the last rear-drive car to win the World Rally Championship. Kind of hard to follow up a Group B racer, especially when you have that kind of lineage, isn’t it? Lancia didn’t seem to think so, or at least wasn’t listening.

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Lancia Stratos

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Lancia Rally (also known as Lancia 037)

In 1984 Lancia, like every other Group B manufacturer, saw the writing on the wall when Audi’s Quattro coupe came screaming onto the scene. Even though the 037 had won the WRC, there was no way Lancia could remain competitive without transitioning to all-wheel drive, so they took the otherwise yawn-inducing Delta four-door hatchback and created the Delta S4 with  basically the same modifications done to the Montecarlo coupe to make the 037: turbo-and-supercharged 1.7L straight-four was mounted mid-ship and the car was hollowed out to be as light as possible. The combination of the turbocharger and the supercharger was enough to feed the engine 32psi of boost at the ultimate peak of tuning. Yikes. Add in four-wheel drive and Lancia had a nuclear warhead with a steering wheel attached.

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Lancia Delta S4

Then Group B got shut down due to several high-profile accidents, the worst of which involved the Delta S4 of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto at the 1986 Tour de Corse, when their car plunged off course into a steep wooded hillside and burst into flames, killing both men. When Group B was ended, the next highest level of rally became Group A, and the Delta was modified into the Delta Integrale HF (high frequency). Most of the car was carried over: the 1.7L twin-charged engine became a 2.0L turbocharged engine, the engine itself became front-mounted and the four-wheel drive remained. Unlike the Group B rules, where 200 cars were required for homologation purposes, however, the Group A rules stipulated 5,000 road-going cars had to be produced (though that number dropped in 1993 to 2,500.)

 

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The red car pictured is a Lancia Delta HF Integrale street car that has somehow made it’s way from Italy into the United States. From the outside, other than the fact that you’re seeing a Lancia in the United States, there isn’t much to the car. It’s a red four-door hatch that has some hints of VW Rabbit going on. Out back things get a little more entertaining, with a spoiler above the hatch and two jutting tailpipes at the end. There’s even a tow ring in the center of the rear bumper. The car looks hunched over the wheels and everything appears intriguing enough. In the road going cars, you got 185hp and 224 ft/lb torque in a car weighing just under 2,800 lbs. A 6.2 second 0-60 time was typical for a stock HF Integrale…for comparison, this car would keep pace nicely with a Subaru BRZ if it didn’t get a holeshot with the 4wd system going. That’s fast regardless, but for a four-door hatchback from 1989…that’s serious.DSC_0946_zps44e7a048

 

 

 

 

 

 


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3 thoughts on “Random Car Review: Lancia Delta HF Integrale, Italian Insanity On A Low Dose Of Medication

  1. john

    You’d have better chance of finding “Bigfoot” than parts for that little rocket. It still is VERY cool. 🙂

  2. ratpatrol66

    I saw one just like the red one today on my way back from Canada today. It’s a bad ass looking car!

  3. Sumgai

    Love these cars. Put every quarter I had into the Sega Rally machine growing up, racing the Martini Delta against the Castrol Celica GT-Four. Sometimes I drove the Celica but always preferred the Delta. Now I have a pair of radio controlled versions, both in period-correct rally livery.

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