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This car is one of the all time highlights of rallying. It is the first successful purpose built rally car ever. To have the story correct, the first purpose built rally car would have to be the Ford GT70. But the GT70 wasn't faster (at least on gravel) than the Escort and Ford soon decided that for marketing and budget the simpler and more road car like Escort was the way to go. Lancia's approach was way more brutal than that of Ford. Both cars were mid engined, lightweight sports coupés, but only the Lancia had a supercar engine as well! They simply borrowed one from Ferrari!
And this was part of what made the Stratos so special, moving emotions in every rally fan. Basically being a Ferrari mid-engined sports coupé doesn't sound like the perfect rally car. But the Stratos was just something so special, engineered without shortcuts. It had a very solid, huge rear subframe, so it could take rough conditions and still handle decently. It had a rear bonnet that would open the entire rear half of the body and allow easy access to about everything (a layout that wasn't seen again until the group B 205 T16 ten years later), so it was very easy to service. And it had the power as well, in form of a Ferrari engine that as a bonus would sound just absolutely sexy! About everything around the Stratos was mystique. And after the first WRC title in 1973 went to Renault-Alpine, Lancia replied in winning 3 titles on the trott with the Stratos. The abilities of this car were amasing. Lancia indeed managed to build a mid-engined tarmac racer that would allow Björn Waldegaard to win in the snow of the 1975 Swedish Rally and Sandro Munari to come 2nd on the same year Safari! There are many cars that could claim to be the best of their era or their category, but there was never another rally car quite like the Stratos!
The Stratos was so brilliant that even their own mother company had a tough struggle to kill it. At first there were doubts if a specialist car like the Stratos would be ideal for road car marketing. Accordingly Lancia developped and ran the Beta Coupé in the WRC, but the Stratos survived it! Then Fiat stepped in, the Fiat 131 Mirafiori was designed to replace the Stratos in the WRC. And indeed the 131 was the more used model and a big success, but was it really faster than the Stratos? As late as 1981 Bernard Darniche entered the Tour de Corse in a completely private Stratos and won that rally - 1981 was the very year the Fiat 131 celebrated its scheduled farewell!
There were 2 main versions of the Stratos in rallying and they seem to be the wrong way round, a curiosity.
1) "HF" & "HF 4v": When the Stratos debuted on Corsica 1972 it was a group5 prototype. The HF from San Remo 1974 was homologated into group4 but basically identical to the group5 prototype and test car. As well when the "4v" came, changes were very minor. The whole point of the "4v" was to increase power and Lancia did so in giving it 4-valves per cylinder = 24v cylinder heads. The attachments "4-valves" and later "2-valves" were never part of the official name but commonly used to identify one Stratos version from the other.
2) "HF 2v": This however was a completely different story. It seems a curiosity that the Stratos with 2-valves per cylinder was the successor of the 4v! This seems to be a step back in development, but was the result of a regulation change. From 1978 the freedom of the number of valves was cancelled in group 4 and as the Stratos' Ferrari base engine was standard a 2v layout, the group 4 Stratos had to follow suit. But Lancia made a huge effort to compensate for this step backwards. This "HF 2v" was like a completely new design. Only this "2v" had the characteristic roof aerofoil, a large rear spoiler and much wider wheel arches. The whole rear body was a complete re-design and even the dash was totally different!
For the chassis numbers and photos a big thank you to Udo Sparwald at www.lancia-stratos.de
|
Model & Evo. (Activity) |
BHP@ RPM |
Torque (Nm)@ RPM |
Length Width Height |
Weight (Kg/BPM Ratio) |
Trans. (W'base) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Stratos HF (74-75) |
240/7800 | 275/6000 | 3710.1750.1110 | 960 (4) | RWD (2180) |
|
Stratos HF 2v (78-81) |
270/7800 | 275/6000 | 3710.1860.1100 | 960 (3.55) | RWD (2180) |
|
Stratos HF 4v (76-77) |
290/8000 | 300/6000 | 3710.1750.1110 | 970 (3.3) | RWD (2180) |
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