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The Lancia Delta Integrale demonstrated incredible consistency, taking down six consecutive WRC titles, thanks to its steady and unrelenting evolution.
From Econo-Box to Rally Champ
Today, Lancia is a minor Italian brand within the expansive Stellantis portfolio. Lancia makes one car, the Ypsilon, a 12-year-old five-door hatchback based on the Fiat 500. And though there are rumblings of a new Ypsilon and even a new Delta in the works, the Lancia of 2023 remains a far, far cry from the rally course juggernaut of days gone by.
From the 1970s through the early 1990s, Lancia was one of the biggest and winningest names in rally car competition, and their most iconic car was easily the Delta Integrale, which took title after title, stunning spectator and competitor alike. And yet, the Lancia Delta began in 1979 as a car not too dissimilar from today’s Ypsilon, a five-door front-wheel drive hatchback built more for commuting on city streets than weaving its way around a rally course.
So, how did the Lancia Delta go from econo-box to rally racing legend? A gradual evolution, naturally.
Lancia’s Rally Legacy
Lancia was a major name in rallying dating back to the 1960s and 70s. The Fulvia marked Lancia’s return to racing in 1965 (having left Formula 1 a decade earlier) and the beginning of a decade’s long run of dominance. The Fulvia was a smashing success, taking eight of nine Italian Rally Championships from 1965 through 1973.
Like the Delta Integrale, the Fulvia was a homologated road car, and as the car aged out of its prime Lancia replaced it with a purpose-built rally car, the mid-engine Stratos. The Stratos too took the rally scene by storm, claiming WRC (World Rally Championship) titles in 1974, ’75, and ’76.
Another mid-engine rally car, the Lancia 037 won the WRC’s Manufacturers’ Title in 1983 Group B competition. The 037 would be the last rear-wheel drive car to win a WRC title. The 037 would continue making things competitive alongside it successor the new Delta S4, which debuted on the Group B circuit in 1985. Like Lancia’s other rally cars, the Delta S4 was purpose built with four-wheel drive and a mid-mounted 1759cc I-4 engine that was now both turbocharged and supercharged.
WRC’s Group B was highly permissive in its rule set, allowing manufacturers and teams to modify almost entirely as they pleased. As a result, teams pushed the limits of the cars, the engineering, and the reaction times of drivers. This produced hair-raising races and crashes. After a series of tragic crashes in the 1986 season, including one involving Lancia team driver Attilio Bettega, Group B was cancelled.
Welcome to Group A
The dissolution of Group B left Lancia committing its racing ambitions to the WRC’s Group A. Group A’s homologation requirements were more intensive than Group B’s; where hundreds or even dozens of production cars had sufficed for homologation, Group A regulations required Lancia to build 5,000 road-going cars. This meant a purpose-built racer like the Delta S4 was out of the question. All was not lost; Lancia did have their Delta road car laying around.
Lucky for Lancia’s rally team, the Delta HF4WD had been introduced in April of 1986 as the new top end Delta production car. It ran a 1,995-cc turbocharged I-4 borrowed from the Lancia Thema and produced 165 horsepower and 192 lb.-ft. of torque sent to all four wheels. The Delta HF4WD was just the ticket as a basis for a new Lancia rally car. The new car made a 1-2 finish at its first race, the Monte Carlo Rally, and went on to win 9 of the next 13 events, culminating in both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ WRC titles for the 1987 season.
The following season saw the introduction of the Delta HF Integrale 8V (eight valve). Its 2.0L engine made 182 horsepower and 224 lb.-ft. of torque thanks to a bigger turbocharger and a bigger intercooler. Suspension and brakes were also upgraded. The suspension overhaul produced a wider track for the car, the resulting fender flares quickly became one of the Delta Integrale’s visual calling cards.
The Delta HF Integrale 16V (sixteen valve) was introduce in 1989, winning its first outing at the San Remo Rally and eventually taking the WRC championship that year and the next. Changes included a hood bulge to accommodate the large engine which brought the Delta Integrale up to 197 horsepower. The track of the car was widened once again, and both the turbocharger and intercooler were replaced as well (the former somewhat reducing the Delta’s notorious turbo-lag).
Evolving the Integrale: Evo I and Evo II
The Delta continued its evolution with the arrival of the HF Integrale Evoluzione (aka the Evo I) in September of 1991. Unbelievably, another 2.8 inches in width for even beefier fenders front and rear. The shock towners were welded in for an absurd amount of suspension travel and connected by a stress bar to add greater rigidity. Brakes were upgraded to two-piston Brembos, and a three-way adjustable spoiler added in the rear. After winning yet another WRC title in dominant fashion for a fifth consecutive year in 1991, Lancia retired their factory team, but continued supplying cars to Martini Jolly Club Racing which led to a sixth manufacturers WRC title for Lancia in 1992.
The final form of the rally-going Delta, the Delta HF Integrale Evo II, debuted in 1993 with more power (215 horsepower), larger wheels (16 inches), and a new red cam cover. Other cosmetic enhancements included a MOMO three-spoke steering wheel, Recaro sport seats, and an aluminum fuel cap.
By this point, the Delta Integrale had evolved into a rally-going marvel. The strut rose to meet the bulging hood, the front end was a Swiss cheese of air intakes (even the headlight housing gulped in air), and practically everything that could possibly need it got dedicated cooling, even the power steering fluid. And then there were those hips. The Delta’s fenders flared out to theretofore unheard-of extremes.
Across its four iterations, the Lancia Delta Integrale trounced the competition, claiming a total of 46 WRC rally wins and a record six manufacturers’ titles, making it one of the greatest and most deservedly celebrated rally cars of all time.
