- This special Lancia is nearly the last of a rallying breed.
- With a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, this is Italy’s answer to the likes of the Subaru WRX.
- This one has been carefully reworked by none other than Stellantis design chief Ralph Gilles, whose passions clearly run deeper than the V-8 muscle cars with which he’s most associated.
It’s no secret that the chief designer at Stellantis, Ralph Gilles, is a fan of Detroit muscle. He designed the Chrysler 300C, was head of the SRT performance and motorsport division, and is also known to track a Viper ACR and cruise the streets in a 1000-hp Hellephant-powered 1968 Dodge Charger. But Gilles’s passion for speed extends far past big, brash Dodges.
This 1990 Lancia Delta Integrale, up for auction on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos), is a dose of turbocharged rallying madness from a Stellantis sub-brand that’s nearly forgotten. It’s the box-flared, all-wheel-drive Italian counterpart to the Subaru STI or the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. This ornery little shoebox is fierce, grippy, and built to tear up any back road, and its previous ownership by Gilles shows that he’s a true car enthusiast.
The Delta started out as a pretty ordinary compact family hatchback, with squared-off styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro. As Subaru and Mitsubishi later did, Lancia transformed the Delta into a rally-bred performance machine by adding boost and all-wheel-drive grip for the Integrale model. The result was incredibly successful and included six WRC constructors’ championship victories in a row, picking up where the mighty Stratos and 037 had left off.
This 1992 example is a Delta Integrale Evoluzione, and it is technically the final year of the homologation rally cars, as Lancia stopped rally development after its 1992 WRC win. Under the hood is a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that was good for just shy of 210 horsepower in factory trim, but has been upgraded with a rebuild featuring new camshafts, a reprogrammed ECU, and a high-flow exhaust.
Box flares arguably can make any car look cooler, and here they enhance Giugiaro’s original design to no end. Rally-style 15-inch Speedline wheels wearing 225-series Kumho ultra-high-performance summer tires and complete the look. With adjustable coil-overs, the stance on this car is just perfection.
The odometer shows the metric equivalent of 63,000 miles, and the car is accompanied by service records and a host of spare parts. The recent rebuild and new clutch mean this little Italian terrier is just waiting to be let off its leash.
In a nice overlap with Gilles’ Hellephant-powered Charger, this Delta Integrale wears a little elephant badge on its grille, as all the most-sporting Lancias have since the 1960s. It’s the brand’s performance mascot, symbolizing Gianni Lancia’s famous quote, “Once an elephant starts running, no one can stop it.”
But you can catch one. Head on over to Bring a Trailer to bid on a machine that is both a part of rallying history, and has also been sympathetically cared for by a great designer who is also a true gearhead.
The auction ends on March 13.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.