There's something about Lancia rally cars. Yes there are other iconic rally cars, some that spring to mind would be the Celica GT-Four decked in Castrol livery (both of them), the Subaru Impreza in Subaru colours, the Red Bull Cirtoen C4, and of course the Audi Quattro, but to my mind none of them had that special something that Lancias brought to the party. Whether coloured in the blue and red (pink?) stripes of Martini, or the green and red of Alitalia, when a Lancia turned up, that's when the party started.
And, party they did. The Lancia Fulvia may have started the rally ball rolling, but in the mid-70s the Stratos arrived in green and red stripes and took the WRC by storm, winning the championship 3 years in a row. This was the start of the Lancia legend, with the Stratos mantle being taken on by the Montecarlo, which quickly made way for a Lancia with a rather dull name... the Lancia Rally 037.
With a lacking of an imaginative name, the 037 also arrived with what appeared to be a lacking in reliability. There were flashes of ability during it's 1982 inaugural year, but a large number of retirements suggested the Lancia 037 was not destined for greatness. However, 1983 turned out to be a remarkably different story. Starting in Monte Carlo with a win by Walter Röhrl, and Markku Alén in second, that was followed with 3 more one-twos, and another win by Röhrl. Lancia took the 1983 constructors title, with Röhrl only just beaten to the drivers' title by Hannu Mikkola. The car that Mikkola was driving? That was the Audi Quattro.
The Rally 037 was followed by another special car from Lancia, which was the Delta. The Delta first appeared as the RWD Lancia Delta S4 in the bonkers Group B rally era. This turbocharged, and supercharged, carbon fibre-bodied beast was far-removed from the road-going production Delta, and under testing managed to produce around 1000 horsepower. The S4 was capable of hitting 100km from stop in two and a half seconds, that was as quick as Formula 1 cars of the time.
Group B was sensibly abolished due to a number of fatal accidents, and whilst this created struggles for other constructors, Lancia had a ready replacement in the 4WD Lancia Delta HF Integrale version, which became the dominant force in Group A.
