1975 Lancia Stratos HF - Jay Leno's Garage

fantastic this is one of those dates you know in the first five minutes you're in love i love this car welcome to the episode of jaylon's garage pandemic edition sadly we've had a reoccurrence here in california uh the crackdown has re-emerged and was sort of locked out of having our crew once again so we are doing these uh the old-fashioned way so i hope you don't mind that um but we try to have new content for you every single week regardless of what's going on the rest of the world it keeps us a little bit sane and we have an insane car here today actually this is a 1975 lancia stratos hf which stands for high fidelity which uh i don't quite get what that is but that's what it is high fidelity it was the 70s um this is not my car uh this car used to belong to our old friend john campion john was here uh oh i guess a year or so ago maybe a little bit longer uh sadly he passed away from leukemia what a great guy he was a that classic american dream story irish immigrant came here with 26 bucks in his pocket started a couple of companies work with rock group fascinating life and was taken from us way too soon and he loved race cars he loved italian cars and this was one of his cars this car now belongs to a company called stratus auctions they're going to be auctioning off a car very similar to this in a couple of weeks but we thought it'd be fun when john was here we didn't have a chance to bring this car we brought some of his other cars he can go back and and look at his uh his uh interview with us on youtube and see some of his cars you'll see how passionate he was about these i think you've just google uh lancius lancia's leno youtube it'll probably show up there okay let's get into what we have here this is the world's first purpose-built rally car you know what's interesting lancia used to work primarily with pinafornina bertone wanted to get involved with them and baton went to them and said hey i got an idea i want to build a car and they they use what is it the nancy of fovea is that how you say it you know these italian names i sometimes trip over them i apologize this car comes together some stratus auctions uh started by a young man a name lance butler who you know it's funny 25 years ago we started a scholarship for mcpherson college in kansas for young men and women that want to get into automotive well anything automotive it's the only college that gives a four year degree in automobile restoration they teach everything paint and body work electrical business everything and this young man i met him at pebble beach in 2014 was a graduate of the school which made me feel really good and he started this auction company and now he's sort of dealing in these rare automobiles so that's uh it's that's fun to see so there's another american success story right there this car was designed by marcelo candini it's a mochelle of course the lamborghini miura the countach this is probably his most fertile period all those cars sort of coming at a furious rate in a short amount of time uh the flying wedge they used to call this uh you remember the uh lancia zero that belonged to our friend philip serafin probably the lowest car ever you know i i think the the rumor goes that bertone wanted to show lancia what he had done and he drove it to the factory and went under the gate that came down and though they all did they're all cheered magnificent you know italian's very passionate about their cars anyway this was just pretty much the wildest italian car i've seen in a long time this uses the ferrari dino 2.6 liter v6 engine about 119 horsepower weighs about 950 kilograms which is uh well this one's is closer to 2000 pounds but still extremely light five-speed gearbox this started out as a road car and the first owner modified it for racing won a bunch of races uh these ran the these won the tour de france a number of times three or four times at toggle florida just all kinds of the most successful rally car i think i don't know in history but pretty darn close i'm not i'm not a big rally guy i don't have all the facts i just love them as a road car that's my favorite sort of car this was something different this is a race car uh that was later modified for the road you know a lot of times whether it's the mclaren f1 or whatever it's a road car modified for racing but this was built primarily as a race car people just went nuts for it they love the look they love the feel they love the sound and they did a road going version of it well i mean look at this headlight setup on the front this is pretty wild no one has ever seen anything like this uh pretty amazing uh let me open it up a little bit here for you it's not as cramped as you might think vision out the front is fantastic vision out the back is almost non-existent because well everybody's behind you on this car that's pretty much it i mean this just won everything incredibly fast in fact a lot of manufacturers just withdrew from rallying because they knew they had no chance against this automobile it's it's it's a legendary car i mean this was the 70s you know got us 50 years ago but you know this car still looks current it still looks up to date i mean let me show you something in the door here's something i find fascinating notice how the window works this is kind of cool you just loosen this and then you drop the whole window down and this area here is for your helmet so you put your helmet right here which is kind of cool yeah this is such a simple solution isn't it i mean it's lightweight it's efficient and gives you as much window as you need i suppose it is a 5 speed as i said earlier dog leg this one has the road going synchromesh transmission i believe the worx cars had kind of a dog box where it just sort of just slam those gears the gears are bigger stronger tougher to take the horsepower this is a two-valve engine not the four-valve version uh but with the synchronous makes it a little easier to drive and it's geared well it's got rally gears in it which means it's not a 150 mile an hour car top speed in this thing is probably i don't know 100 miles an hour or something like that i don't know i'm not speaking from experience there but when i drive in a few minutes we'll see just how low geared it is but it's a 0-60 car it's meant to just well it's a rally car just tears through dirt roads and whatever else is out there let's come around and take a look at the back of the vehicle the back is uh pretty impressive as well this is the view most people see you know let me tell you you can't beat round tera lights whether it's the mid 60s cortinas or the first generation bmws you know they went to the square it was never the same everybody loves round tail lights for some reason and they make a statement they get the job done i'm going to try and open this up i know he said it's a two-man job but i'm learning about this car just as you are so let's see we're going to undo this let's do that latch there and do another latch on the other side i don't have my crew because of the kova deal okay uh okay we've got pins here that hold it we've got pins here that hold it and this opens as well i have no idea what's in here okay this is just a boot it's got some headphones okay nothing really in there but actually a good size trunk for all right let me see what happens now if i can i'm not sure i could do this by myself let's see that's loose okay wants to move hang on i see why this is a two-man job you got to keep going back and forth oh okay here we go all right here we are okay don't want to break anything bridge okay there we go notice the air box here you know interesting nowadays because this would be 3d printed but this is looks like interesting here how this was done you know when i was a kid i worked at a car dealership foreign motors in boston we used to deal in these kind of cars all the time we used to get the fiat dino the fiat dino was a fiat with this ferrari v6 engine in it and since it didn't have the magical ferrari name they didn't go for much money 3 500 bucks five grand and we get them at the wholesale price and then you know my boss would sell them for five fifty five hundred six thousand dollars something like that but it's amazing now because they command a premium price now he didn't want to give the engines to lancia there was some hesitation there and then eventually he did uh they built 492 of these cars for humble homologation rather uh you needed 500 then they changed it to 400 but they wound up building 492 uh this as i said a 1975 model um so ferrari eventually released the engines to to be used by lancia and la casa lancia just a a great company um built some legendary cars alonso aurelia uh just uh just amazing i've i've got one of the aurelia's a b-24 and it is the greatest car with a v6 engine lancia actually made the first v6 engine but they did not make the engine for this this was a ferrari motor as i said 190 horsepower but eventually they came out with a four valve head and they got it up to 500 and something hospital so they were these were fast powerful cars and tricky at speed extremely short wheelbase um uh yeah so there you go there you go but there's your dual fuel pumps right there overflow is here oil filler here battery uh looks like a a large motorcycle battery for a gull wing or maybe a big bmw 2 or a harley 2 or a small for a car but again you're looking for the lightest weight possible this is well it's got electronic ignition i don't know if they had that back in 1975. four wheel discs you got filler caps on each side and you got these outside you see right here in this little door to to fuel it up but uh impressive looking thing uh look at this frame look at the upright shocks here the way it's all put together just an exciting you know this car could exist in any era obviously the 70s was its highlight but 80s 90s for the next hundred years this will be just an amazing car the look is outrageous now it looks contemporary now imagine this in 1970 this was uh when the wedge shape was out of the whole deal you know uh gandini what a genius he was what a fantastic artist and designer to the countach the miura this i mean just a very fertile period for him he was quite a guy and he still i was going to say a young man i think he's maybe two years older than i am but this is not a young not a young man but uh very cool all right let's open up the front too and show you what that looks like okay i got the front open i spared you me running back and forward like i did in the back this is what it looks like it's amazing how much like the lamborghini miura this is you can see the gandini influence here the same sort of fans the same sort of tilt to the radiator the way the tire is mounted with the fuel pump another fuel pump is there another fuel pump up here no there isn't i'm sorry i'm sorry because the gas tank in the mirror was up front but anyway just it it reminds me of the mirror put it that way i guess it doesn't have that much in common with it but enough to make me go hey that reminds me of the mirror okay you got your air intakes here a couple of blowers one blower motor here i mean compared to modern cars it seems almost simplistic but at the time this was pretty complicated a revolution remember this was the first purpose-built rally cars built to be a rally car from day one not a road car not a high-speed oval race car uh a rally car so that's what makes it interesting i recognize those horns that's the same horns the mirror had um and of course it's another kind of gandini thing here the wheel the gold anodized wheel okay i think we're just about ready to take this thing for a ride i am anxious to drive this we'll be experiencing this together because this is my first time in it it's not like we drove it and then we came here and and filmed it i mean you we're doing this sort of in real time the car was dropped off this morning we walked around it we shot these photos i'm going to take it for a ride now and then we'll put it on the truck and send it back but it's wonderful it's thrilling to have the opportunity to do this come on let's go for a ride i forgot to mention before we take it for a ride let's put it up on our stellar coney lift here and show you what it looks like underneath okay as you can see this thing is no prom queen it's uh all skid plates under here you know this is what i love a car you can actually use in the real world and and beat the hell out of it and it can take it you know you're not going to rip off a spoiler or anything on this you've got incredible power incredible speed but you've also got plenty of margin for for ground clearance and stuff like that here's the rear suspension on the left side here's the rear suspension and drive drive shaft on the right side everything looks massively overbuilt look at that frame okay okay it's amazing as light as it is with a massive frame like this these heavy skid plates under here you can't really see a whole lot everything's protected because this thing is going over dirt and rocks and just at a 100 miles an hour just just being pounded to death but you can't break look at this look at this massive all sorts of bracing and everything in here and this skid plate imagine those get replaced fairly regularly there's your front suspension pretty straightforward nothing overly sophisticated here because this thing is built to take a beating there's your radiator up front there's a spare tire that we talked about before what a fantastic car this is this is what i love something you can drive as hard as you possibly could i mean you could never break this car on the street that's what's well you probably could but you have to be an idiot but look at this all right i think we're about ready to take a variety got various drain holes here this is just a big sheet of aluminum nothing lightweight there no carbon fiber on this thing because it wasn't even invented yet all right let's uh let's take her out and see how she goes this is going to be exciting the great thing about this is you never scrape anything you know usually going out my driveway i gotta keep i gotta like go sidewards and every other thing but not with this oh bellissimo but that's the cars [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the gearing is fantastic because it just came for acceleration on every gear you know nobody uses top speed really nobody's going 200 miles an hour on the street like i always say all the fun is between 40 and maybe 110 or 120. and that's where this thing lives oh my god brakes are phenomenal ah that's a fabulous car i love how comprehensive this dashboard is you got a full copy of the gauges you know i don't know what half this stuff does i didn't get any kind of sheet on it obviously it's like i don't know all of that i love the fact all the fuses right here i love the fact that i've got all my uh all my relays you know it's a real world car something breaks you can fix it on the fly real quickly that's what makes it kind of cool but this is very drivable i thought this would be some you know some race car cami thing you couldn't drive on the street but it's fantastic the only concession they made to the street is this synchromesh gearbox but other than that it's pure pure race car [Music] yeah yeah yeah i love how twitchy it is i love the short wheelbase when you're just looking a little over two and a half liters which is not a big motor but this thing is so lightweight and this is before carbon fiber i mean you saw the undercarriage of this thing you saw how massively strong it looked with the bracing and everything yeah it's still very light i wish i was driving at night with these rally lights i'd love to see what it does to the road everybody gives you the thumbs up in this thing an old guy next to me oh guys he's probably five years younger than i am just gave me the thumbs up yeah i'm impressed with a lot of cars this reminds me a lot of the ferrari f40 which was fun to drive but you know i think maybe this might even be more fun i don't know why uh it's just so purpose-built and i love the fact that you don't go oh my god then the splitter hit the thing or the tire hit the you know the inside of the wheel well i i love the fact and there's gear boxes it's a dog leg like a 901 porsche you pull over this way reverse is straight ahead first it's down low seats are comfortable nice leather seats they certainly didn't uh scream there well sure you know these guys would spend nine ten hours or whatever it is in these things with all these lights i'm surprised that that alternator can keep up i must be able to i guess oh clutch a little heavy but that's cool i like that you know so many modern cars electric power steering and all sorts of driver aids and it does make them safer and probably faster but it doesn't make them better i mean it's got you run over a dime you can tell if it's heads and tails of his car with this suspension on it you know it's firm but it's not it's not crashing you know i'm not i'm not getting a kidney punch every time i hit a good-sized bump i gotta find one of these you know john campbell money was here oh he went on and on about this car oh yeah i'm going yeah i've got another car i got a mirror i got that no no this is very cool it's small it's like an alpha montreal on steroids it's in the corners right now fantastic i love this car [Music] as i said before this car originally the first owner bought it as a road car converted to factory specifications then went on to win a bunch of races with i think it's fun about a rally you know you get a race car for the road and it's really not good on the road because the roads are uneven surfaces and have all sorts of problems but you take a rally car which is meant to just be beaten to death over all kinds of horrible terrain and the road is like it's like the best place you know it's it's really like a go-kart the wheelbase is so short i'm trying to think if this is the shortest wheelbase car with real power that i've ever been in other than a aerial atom or maybe my rocket brakes are unbelievable there we go even us synchromed first gear you know i wish our crew was here we could get even better shots but you know you can't live in the time you live in coleman would have had us down for months and months so that's why i got to do these myself i apologize it's not as good as their regular videos but i just want to give you guys something i really enjoyed it awesome you know with this gearing 2.6 liter feels like it's a 5 liter motor one of the great great cars i'm so glad i got a chance to ride this thing you know i'm glad you got a chance to see it too i guess we'll uh see you guys next week i'm gonna go and have some more fun with this thing see you guys later [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 408,363

Rating: 4.975203 out of 5

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, WRC, rally, Lancia, Group 4, Tipo 829, High Fidelity, Marcello Gandini, Bertone, rally car, car porn, rotary, wankel engine, motonerd, ride, riders, Japanese, Giorgetto Giugiaro, roadster, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, jay leno garage, jay lenos garage, car collection, cnbc, 1975 Lancia Stratos HF, JL garage, garages, JLG, Lancia Stratos HF, 1975 Lancia Stratos, Lancia Stratos, Racing cars, lancia stratos

Id: 47sjRyCj6pA

Length: 24min 27sec (1467 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

"I just got a thumbs up from an old guy. Well, actually he was probably five years younger than me, but everybody loves this car."

[u/againstliam]

Definitely a dream car of mine. Short wheel base, short gearing, low weight and that beautiful wedge shape.

[u/wankthisway]

The shape is so iconic. Beautiful car.

[u/the_welded_dif]

amazing builds from lancia another beautiful one was the fulvia which was used in rallying in 1972.

[u/Fugaku]

One day I hope to get a Lister Bell Stratos replica

[u/Picture_Realistic]

Perfection.

[u/Clareth_GIF]

I love that stratos font they use for the car's name. The people who designed this car immediately knew the car was cool as shit.

[u/Clareth_GIF]

I love the windscreen on this car. It reminds me of a visor on some old school anime mech robot pilot's helmet.