It’s about time I revisit an Italian car, and what a car to return to! The Delta is probably Lancia’s most prominent car, and one that is somehow still keeping the brand alive today. But before we talk about the car at hand, we have to revisit its origins. Starting with the 1979 Y5 (the codename for the concept of today’s car), it was styled by both: the man of many G’s, Giorgetto Giugiaro, at Italian design house, Italdesign; and the less-commonly-associated Syd Mead, who was a storyboard designer specializing in futurism, and helped create some of pop culture’s greatest franchises like Bladerunner for example; was staying in Moncalieri at the time, offered guidance in his expressive design techniques. The Y5 was created for the upmarket audience who wanted a small family car. It was slotted under the larger Beta, and in theory, a much needed successor to the Fulvia Berlina, which was discontinued 6 years earlier, leaving an empty gap in the lineup.
Before we get into the meat of the article, I'd like to introduce 2 concepts that defined the later Delta designs. Firstly in 1982, Italdesign Giugiaro unveiled a concept car called the Orca, which was designed to make the later performance-orientated Delta's more aerodynamic, while still retaining the same interior volume. Then in 1988, Pininfarina unveiled a 2+2 coupe called the Lancia HIT (High Italian Technology). The design obviously didn't get the go ahead from Lancia, but Zagato might have used the inspiration for the later Alfa SZ/RZ cars as well as the Lancia Hyena.
The first true performance Delta was the 1983 HF, which stood for “High Fidelity”, an acronym used by the brand since 1966 for their sport and race variants of cars. Fun Fact: the last time the HF name was used was on the Lancia Stratos. The hatchback of this variant was still FWD, but used a turbocharged version of the 104hp DOHC 1.6L used in the Delta GT. A bump in performance gave the little box 128hp, a significant jump from what it was used to. To cope with the increase, an oil cooler was added, the valves were filled with sodium, the suspension and steering were re-tuned, and the tires were widened Michelin’s at 175/65. In true Lancia fashion, the cosmetic changes were minimal, albeit a small silver HF was added to the grill, a deeper chin spoiler, twin bonnet vents were added, black roof rain gutters, black side skirts with “turbo” badging and new 8-spoke alloys. The HF was manufactured for 2 years, and in that time, only 10,000 were produced.
The HF got a facelift in 1985, when it was released alongside the road-going version of the Group B Delta S4, as the HF Turbo. The body was more subtly designed, and had more generous equipment. To differentiate them from the pre-facelift, the silver “HF” badge was changed to a red “HF Turbo” script, a new 3-spoke sports steering wheel, dual wing mirrors, a 2-tone pinstripe along each side of the body and Pirelli P6 tires on 14-inch “telephone dial” Cromodora alloys.
Following the change of design language of the automotive industry in the late 80’s, the Delta of 1986 had yet another update. This time with previously jutting out parts of the body, like the fog lamps, molded into the bumpers; and in 1991, the headlight units changed from the long-used one piece rectangular lamps to 2 circular lamps. It also lost its top-of-the-line model in place of the new 4WD HF Turbo, which was developed based on research of the previously mentioned Group B S4, albeit with a traditional transversion front-engine layout, instead of the rally cars’ longitudinal mid-engine layout. The 4WD HF and its latter successors all used three differentials, the central one being an epicyclic gearing controlled by a Ferguson viscous coupling, and was used to split the torque sent to the two axles depending on which axle was spinning faster. The other two differentials being a traditional open on at the front, and a Torsen (torque-sensing) one at the rear.
Although this setup was front-biased in the beginning, the setup became more and more rear-biased, as we now see in the Delta HF Integrale “Evoluzione” (or more colloquially known as the Delta “Evo 1”). It was the result of a homologated version of the Group A rally car and had been developed and upgraded through numerous variations and updates including the first 8V Integrale, then the 16V Integrale. These Integrale models were differentiated by its large haunches, reminiscent of its rally counterpart and gave the car a more aggressive look, though this time, they were molded as one piece, rather than welded on. The headlights were changed to a smaller type of lamps, with the outboard lamps being projector units; the bonnet had more ventilation slats; front and rear bumpers were widened at the sides to fit the widened fender arches; the rear doors were molded differently for the aforementioned reason too; and rear spoiler was modular, which could be manually adjusted to 3 positions to help with downforce.
For production numbers, only 5,619 of the Evo I’s were made making it nearly as collectable as the Evo II, in which only 4,223 were produced. For the Evo I’s colour options, Lancia provided customers with either 3 standard option solid colours: Monza Red (Rosso Monza), Lord Blue (Blu Signore) and White (Bianco); which were chosen due to them being the Martini racing colours; or for an extra cost, 4 metallic colours: Black (Nero), Madras Blue (Blu Madras), Winner Red (Rosso Vincitore) and Derby Green (Verde Bombetta).
Now for an extra cost, one could purchase a few limited edition models, starting with the Martini 5 Edition, which was essentially a white Evo I with a Martini stripe along each side of the car and a black Alcantara interior with red stitching. Lancia only produced 400 of these for winning 5 consecutive championships.
Next we have the Club Italia Edition, in which Lancia only made 15 and was the first Delta to receive a push-button start. These Dark Blue (Blu Scuro) painted, Bordeaux Red (Rosso Bordeaux) lined cars were reserved for members of the Club Italia.
As a connoisseur of anything automotive in green, I absolutely love the “Verde York” Special Edition Delta, which came equipped with a beige leather interior with exterior matching green stitching. 602 of these were produced.
After the 6th win at the World Rally Championship, the 310 Martini 6’s were produced. These were identical to the Martini 5, except for the white spoiler and the Club Italia gear shifter.
In mid-June, Lancia upgraded their Evo I model to the Evo II, obviously upgrading every part to do with added performance. Not by much though, as the power went from 207 hp to 212 hp, the torque from 300 Nm to 314 Nm. However, to the naked eye, the Evo II doesn’t look that much different to the Evo I. So let me tell you how to easily differentiate them. The Evo I has black rain gutters, while the II has body coloured ones; II had 16” wheels, while I had 15” ones; and the II had aluminium painted gas cap and air intake grilles on the front mudguards, and a red-painted cylinder head. And while the Evo I came in a myriad of colours, the Evo II returned to the standard Martini colour trio of red, white and blue, though this blue was a darker Lancia Blue (Blu Lancia).
It looked like Lancia couldn’t help themselves, as the Evo II also came with a bunch of special editions. An odd colour name ‘Broom Yellow’ (‘Giallo Ginestra’, sounds better in Italian), with high-back Recaro Alcantara seats in black with yellow stitching was added to the array with 150 allocated to Italy, 50 to Germany and 20 to France for a total of 220 Yellow Evo 2’s made. A ‘Pearl White’ (Bianco Perlato) edition was also added, featuring a grey exterior pinstripe and a blue interior, at a total of 365. And if customers didn’t like the dark blue, 215 Delta’s were manufactured with a lighter “Lagos Blue” (Blu Lagos), with a Straw Yellow (Giallo Paglierino) interior.
2 more Club Specials were added: Club Lancia got 7 reserved to them, and Club Hi.Fi (High Fidelity) got 20. Both Club Specials came in either Lancia Blue or Monza Red, had a Yellow-Blue-Yellow stripe going down the middle (a tribute to the old Fulvia HF rally livery), both had their respective club badges on the wings, but the only difference was that the Club Hi.Fi. got an interior colour-matching luggage compartment.
180 Pearl Red (Rosso Perlato) Dealers Collection Delta Evo II’s were made, and reserved to Lancia dealerships. All came with a beige leather interior, and aluminium instrument panel surround, as well as a push-button start (a different design from the Club Italia one).
And as always, the land of the rising sun got their own special edition, because why not, they always get the special stuff. This was the Final Edition, the “Finale Edizione”. All of them were painted in a dark red Amaranth (Amaranto), had the Fulvia HF 'bicolore' stripe, black mesh grille and bonnet vents, a CFRP fuel cap, special badging for the front and rear (of course), dark grey wheels, and an added rear strut bar. All of these 250 cars’ interiors came in black Alcantara and cloth, and were fully loaded with everything the Dealers Collection had; plus a CFRP steering wheels center, aluminium pedals and a race-style aluminium gear shifter and a CFRP console. Lucky Japan.
As the Italian coachbuilder, Zagato, had a fruitful relationship with any brand to do with Fiat, Lancia decided to commission them to build a uniquely-shaped Delta by request of a Dutch classic car restorer by the name of Paul V.J. Koot, who wanted a coupe version of the Integrale. The end product was named the Hyena, and through Marco Pedracini’s hand, a designer under Zagato, the new design looked like an egg on wheels. And a fast egg it was. However, Fiat declined supplying the project with Integrale chassis, even though it had the go ahead with making the Hyena under limited production, which complicated the manufacturing process. The answer to this problem was similar to how the Nissan Skyline GT-R Nismo Z-Tune was produced. In that, they took a fully finished V-Spec II Nur and revamped it into the Z-Tune. In Lancia’s case, they had to take fully finished Delta HF Integrale’s back to the factory to change them into the Hyena’s. Of course, the performance was greatly updated too, with the bodywork being made of aluminium alloys and composite materials, shaving off 150kg from the original Integrale; and upgrade too was the engine, which pushed the power up to 250 hp; which meant the car could accelerate from 0 to 100 in 5.4 seconds, which was relatively quick for 1992. 75 of these were the target, but only 25 were made in the end; and due to the very complicated manufacturing process, each of these cars were sold at 140,000 Swiss Francs (about £49,430).
A one-off convertible in silver was made for Fiat President Gianni Agnelli called the Delta Spider Integrale, as well as another one-off that was pushed by Bruno Maggiora (a designer at Carrozzeria Maggiora), to keep building the Delta even after production ended. The coachbuilder, Maggiora, was most famous for designing cars like the Maserati Mistral, De Tomaso Mangusta and Pantera, and the Fiat Barchetta. To appease the man, Lancia produced a one-off Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione III “Viola”, which was painted in an awesome violet colour, as well as adding on a bunch more performance parts to boost the power up to 237 hp and 320 Nm.
The contrast between the Delta's peak and its subsequent demise is honestly one of the greatest tragedies in automotive history. Lancia took a simple recipe for an everyday family commuter and somehow turned it into a six-time world champion, only to let the ingredients completely spoil the exact moment they walked away from the WRC stage.
Yet, the Integrale’s impact is permanent. It basically defined the modern "hot hatch" blueprint, pushing four-wheel-drive technology and turbocharging to their absolute, staggering limits. The fact that boutique builders were willing to strip down original chassis in 2018 just to build £270,000 carbon-fiber tributes tells you everything you need to know. The Delta didn't fade away; it simply evolved past the factory floors and entered the realm of rolling automotive art.
Lancia may have lost its way—and forgotten to take its medicine—but the Delta Integrale remains completely immortal. It stands as a glorious, anti-aerodynamic monument to a golden era: an era when rallying was wild, liveries were iconic, and a tiny Italian box on wheels could rule the world.
Viva Lancia!
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