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This
week's featured car : The Lancia Stratos
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I
have
been asked many a time as to what is my favourite rally
car is. My usual answer is that among the current crop
of WRC rally cars I havnt one, they are all nice, fast,
and I dont like the sound of any except the grp 'A'
Suzuki swift gti.I do have a favourite rally car, and
that is the Lancia Stratos,it was the most successful
Rally car of 70s, and those were the years when I had
just started my years of motorsport. The specs of the
car were just mind blowing, and I remember as a
teenager, gasping at the power that car produced, not to
mention the exhaust note. Let me just tease you with a
small sample of the specs of the works car. It had a V6
twin OHC motor, with a displacement of 2.4 ltrs,it
produced 190 Bhp at 7400rpm, it had three weber
carburettors 40 Idf, and it was a mid engined rocket
with a 5spd all syncro box.the body panels were all
steel and glass fiber reinforced plastic. In the hands
of Sandro Munari the car was just devastating. I would
take great pride in telling my friends that my Padmini,
or 1100D as we knew it, shared a certain heritage.Few
cars could have had a more fairy tale begining than the
stratos. It began as an impudent attempt by Bertone
studios to wrest business away from arch rivals
Pinifarina at lancia. The lines of this car were
fantastic. the enormous constant radius windscreen, the
dart like side profile and anvanced mid-engine
configuration gives the car a shape like no one had seen
before. At full bore, the engine was a screamer and had
its own distinct high pitched wail. Yet finding the
right engine for the car almost defeated the whole
stratos project. During the time it was winning the WRC
it became a part of the Fiat empire, and gave fans like
me the joy of owning a Padmini. Ask any person who has
ever driven a rally car, if there is a car that they
would dream of rallying, and you probably hear the word
'Stratos'. Even on computer simulated rally games , the
stratos is a car always included. just to finish this
story that is a picture of me with the works stratos,
which ran the Alitalia colours. the cars won no less
than three World Rally Championships. |
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