Lancia Delta Integrale remains a cultheld

Posted on 20-01-2014 at 19:39 by Ricardo – 36 Comments”

At the fair Interclassics&Topmobiel in Maastricht were last weekend, not only classics, but also a lot of really nice do. Correct now, the calamitous news about the demise of Lancia accumulate, it was nice to have another Delta Integral see. .

This car was made when he came on the market a cultheld, because of his rallygenen. And that is with the years only became stronger. And German dealer offered in Maastricht this 210 hp Evo. It is a Evo I of 1992, but the snazzy white rally rims seem to be not the original. It may be that this type of wheels comes with the limited edition of the Delta Integral which in Japan is, because this copy is from Japan imported.

Also the yellow Delta Integrale Harry Metcalfe comes from Japan, as he explains in this episode of Evo Diaries: delicious old fashioned slow television.

We owe this straatuitvoering of the Integral to the fact that Lancia are rallymodellen had to approve. The path had already been paved by the Lancia 037 and the Delta S4, which if brute prototypes the glory days of the Group B-rallyklasse had made. And that is Chris Harris still pale to the nose to see if he can get a ride.

Hot hatch
To the current standards, the performance is not really more special. Around 200 hp and a torque of over 250 Nm is almost commonplace to mention. What is quite interesting is that Lancia at the time, dared to of a ordinary gezinshatchback a real hot hatch. With all the nice technology that when was available, such as a turbo with intercooler and all-wheel drive.

Quite striking is, that the Lancia all this did in its final days. The Delta came in 1979, at the market as a answer to the VW Golf I. Only in the early nineties, when the Wave III is already applied, came the real thick versions. Funny, but then again that Volkswagen is the Golf II G60 extended wheel arches gave which clearly were copied from the Delta. With the understanding that they the Golf really isn’t there.

The question is whether there are nowadays cars that the purity of the Delta Integral as a ferocious hot hatch can match. The pk’s are there, but there is also obesity by double-koppelingtransmissies and all kinds of electric luxury frills. And above all, there is understeer and fool proof handling. Whoever comes the closest?

With thanks to Robert van den Oever and Maarten van der Pas for this guest article!

Gallery: Lancia Delta Integrale Interclassics 2014

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