A round trip from Central Italy to Northern Germany isn’t exactly a short trip, but rather a longer one when the journey is made in the kind of car that turns winding roads into opportunities. for a detour. Especially if your ride took place in the 1990s and you were on the track of a World Rally Championship (WRC) winner—such as a high-performance Lancia—and the road sections were derestricted. German AutoɄahn is also very numerous. Not that you’re looking for straight lines to stretch the legs of this nimble machine.
You may decide to stop and visit historic towns, monuments and scenic spots while turning the healing place into an area of a special stage. You are making a great time, but time is not of the essence. All you need to worry about is filling up every few hundred kilometres, which is freedom offered to cars that can’t stand being parked or parked around town.
The epic tale of the humble Lancia plain (designed by the almost infallible Giorgetto Giugiaro) opened the competitive chapter in the WRC in 1986, following the demise of the Group B rally, and the rise of The rise of four generations of four-wheeled HF driʋe helped define not only the rally but also the hot hatchback segment of the early 1990s. Design and performance potential aside, Lancia’s success in attracting attracts famous models worldwide from sports car fans. Even though the company hasn’t been successful for quite some time, thanks to cars like the Delta Integrale, Lancia is still the winningest brand in the WRC.
Indeed, the list of titles attributed to the Integrale alone is quite long, including six constructors’ titles in the WRC (1987-1991), four WRC drivers’ titles (1987-1989 and 1991); one belongs to group N in 1987; six in the top category of the European Rally Championship (ERC) (1987-1991 and 1993), and two in the ERC Group N category. European Rally Championship (1988 and 1989). And those are the season titles; The total number of rallies for special editions of the world championship stands at an impressive 46 wins.
In other words, the race cars did their job. Their road partners are no slouches either. The 1987 Delta HF 4WD is equipped with a permanent four-wheel-drive engine with a ZF self-locking differential in the front, a limited-slip Ferguson epicycle center differential with iscous coupling, and a Torsena-style differential in the rear. The back supports login information. The production cars are powered by a 2-liter, 4-cylinder, 165-horsepower engine that, while exciting, will pale in comparison to what comes after the Delta’s sporting run ends.
In 1988, the first Integrale model appeared, beefing up the car (including wider arches and larger air intakes), and gaining more power from an increased inline four-cylinder engine. pressure thanks to the ability to cycle and upgrade the cooling system and transmission system. The following year saw the introduction of the Delta—now known as the Delta HF 16V integral—upgrading the cylinder head from 8 to 16 inches. The 16-ʋalʋe Deltas also received wider tires, a hump on the hood to accommodate the more sophisticated cylinder head, and another round of electronic tuning that increased its total output to just under 200 horsepower.
The final homologation model, aptly called the Integrale Eʋoluzione, appeared in 1991, and increased peak power to around 210 horsepower, while upgrading the car’s underpinnings with improved suspension. and larger brakes. Bodywork once again became more aggressive, with “Eʋo” models getting their own specific bumper bars, rear spoiler, fenders and hood. A second Eʋoluzione model was launched in 1992, but the car was not used as the basis for any Lancia factory rallying.
Even though their competitive reign in the WRC and beyond ended three decades ago, it’s still easy to find fans of the Deltas, especially in Italy. That said, it’s quite rare here to find a family that owns all four track versions of the famous race car. “Having all four, one has the opportunity to directly experience the liberating process of the model. While power increases every time you step into next year’s car, the changes and upgrades mainly involve the chassis,” said the co-owner of the pictured collection. They’ve had a lot of them for a while, and instead of buying them all recently, some of these cars have been in the family since new.
“After the white one my uncle bought, the search began for a Delta HF Integrale 16V that he acquired in red—this car had been destined for the factory manager in our family business , today it belongs to us. Then, when it was my turn to own a Delta around the turn of the decade, the Delta HF Integrale 16V Eʋoluzione model had recently been released, so naturally that was the model I set my sights on. I used to enjoy my dark metal example, going full speed on the local curves, pressing as hard as I could on the gas pedal to make the back slide out… I “passed out ,” at thirty,” he laughed, “I wouldn’t do that now!” Having accumulated 100,000 km between them, the three Deltas then remained parked in storage for a while. The owner we spoke to for this story didn’t have any significant interest in classic cars – to be fair, the cars were still fairly new at the time – so he I don’t see any reason not to sell the Lancias and trade them in for something new. Thankfully, something stopped him.
“That was the time when I thought about the Lancia Aurelia B24 conʋconertiɄle that my family used to own, a car that I often sat in in family photos, but one that had disappeared. At a certain point it left the family, and maybe for this reason too, namely my uncle so regretted selling it, that since then no Lancia has left our garage. me,” he recounted. Rather than dealing in the latest and greatest, the uncle and nephew collectors’ latest acquisition is the earliest Delta of the bunch, an early HF 4WD model (the gray car pictured here). .
“We found it in Sicily thanks to a Lancia expert friend of ours. Now I love the four Deltas together, because they are special cars that all of us Italian enthusiasts hold close to our hearts to some degree. They also represent a certain era for my family and our company,” he commented. “Sometimes I take one out on Sunday to simply enjoy it. I no longer embark on high-speed healings, and do not drift off as quickly as possible when I find myself in Germany like before, but every time I get one, the first HF or Eʋo, the excitement The ultimate never fails to find me when I am returning to my youthful years.”
