- Image by -Alerc via Flickr
Lancia… There are a few cars Lancia has built over the years that are just plain exciting. Italian design is usually excellent… their engineering has been suspect, but don’t forget that the home of Fiat is also the home of Ferrari. Of course, nobody has accused any of the Italian car companies of building for reliability and longevity.
But this isn’t about reliability and longevity… It is about cool…
My all-time favorite Lancia is the Stratos. It was the baddest of the bad-ass rally cars from the 1970s. Incredible power, over-the-top styling and limited production.
And since we have been on a tear lately with ‘retro’ cars (Volkswagen New Beetle, Mini Cooper, Fiat 500, Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger, Jeep Wrangler… oh, wait, Jeep’s styling hasn’t really gone away from retro), why not drag out a seriously cool nameplate?
Image via Wikipedia
Actually, I just found out that there is an updated design floating around at Lancia. And it follows up on the look. It wouldn’t be a stretch to have massive power available… there are some groovy-nasty powerplants to choose from. And somehow, I don’t think there will be tens of thousands of these things on the streets… or tens of hundreds… or possibly even tens of tens. (Rumor pegs it at 25 cars…)
I would guess that when all is said and done, it will have twice the HP of the original, weigh slightly more, and have performance that will drop-kick the old car… but it probably won’t be able to run the Safari Rally as it rolls off of the showroom floor.
Of final note, I think that ALL of them need to come in just one color scheme… and you can see it in the pictures, the Alitalia livery. It is just natural.
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