One of the more exciting things about the development of a new model is the spy photography that comes with it. The days of waiting to see the new models in September have been gone for years, but the days of seeing a prototype mule roaming the streets is still well and good. Sometimes you get lucky and you spot something like the upcoming Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 just randomly prowling around town. Other times it’s a photographer who must have trained with Special Forces up in a tree with a zoom lens you could use to find the Moon landing site with at night, aiming straight at a car that is easily half a decade away from breaking cover, if it makes it that far. There is always just a little bit of awe when seeing the new vehicle for the first time…imagine the looks of the guy who first saw the 1994 Dodge Ram roaming outside of Auburn Hills, or the reactions to the first sighting of the Plymouth Prowler. You’d hardly believe it was real as it rolled past you.

Now, picture this little wonder undergoing testing. It kind of looks like a Lancia Delta, but it’s as flimsy as a balsa wood glider and has about the same structural integrity. The engine, a four-banger with a supercharger and a turbocharger (because why not?) is known to have been cribbed from the company’s wicked rally car. Unlike that race machine, however, this one drives all four wheels and moves out at the first provocation of the throttle. What you are looking at is a test mule for the Lancia Delta S4, the most batshit crazy of the Group B rally cars by a wide margin and the vehicle that is ultimately the reason why the series got shut down in 1986. The Delta S4 could move just fine and when it was good, it was really, really good. But ultimately, this was the razor’s edge of acceptability, even in a class of specially-designed screamers, and the 1986 accident at the Tour de Corse sealed not only it’s own fate, but the fate of the whole racing class.

But nobody would have known that as this car was as wild as it would be. This thing was monstrous on it’s most friendly terms. Imagine watching this Lancia rip away from the starting point sounding like it was keeping a hurricane hostage to feed the engine air for the first time…