This Car WANTS to Kill You: Lancia Stratos — BTS with DTS — Ep. 14

thank you try it's not a Triscuit [Music] [Music] let's cut straight to the chase the launch of Stratos is one of the most outrageous deranged cars ever sold to the public but unleashing such an unhinged car in consumers wasn't its primary purpose and in fact the car sat around unsold for years after they were built the real purpose of the Stratos was to go rallying and it did that like no car before or since it is deservedly a legend and the way that it does its thing is so singular that it will make an unforgettable impression on anyone whoever interacts with one no matter how many other special cars they've experienced the Stratos story starts in the 1950s by 1955 lanja had developed four specialized sports cars and the world's most advanced Grand Prix car in barely more than three years something they did effectively without regard to cost [Music] meanwhile launches commercial vehicle and passenger car divisions were losing money and the launch of family had had enough the entire Grand Prix operation including cars spare parts and even Engineers was handed over to Ferrari in the middle of the racing season and the launch of family sold a majority stake of the company to cement magnet Carlo pezenti [Music] with launcher officially out of racing various private groups picked up the torch and by the early 60s flavias were appearing in rallies these were joined by their little brothers the fulvias in 1965 and they were even more effective the same year the most active of the private racing team's HF squatted corset was folded into Lancia to become their official racing entity after a decade of absence blancho was Off to the Races again HF squadra corset had only been founded two years earlier in 1963 by cesarai Fiorio the 23 year old son of launcha Marketing Executives Sandro furio cesare would be lunch's racing efforts over the next two decades all the way from the fovia through the Delta integral including the Stratos the second half of the 60s went very well for launches race team with the phobias taking over completely and winning a number of rallies including an overall victory at the 1967 tour of the course by Sandro monari who would later become the most iconic Stratos pilot class wins in road racing were not atypical either including the Daytona 24 hours Target Florio and monzo 1000 kilometers by the start of the 70s the phobia had reached the limit of its development and a host of other cars were starting to Eclipse it including the Renault Alpine A110 and Porsche 911 both of which had their engines behind rather than in front of their occupants the combination of not being able to extract more from the phobia and the desire for a rear-wheel drive car shaped launches earliest Visions for an all-new rally car it would be designed from the ground up to meet upcoming group 4 competition regulations and be agile and tough enough to excel in both technical rallies with lots of tarmac and punishing events over rough terrain such as the East African safari rally and Greece's Acropolis rally more or less by coincidence the coach Builder Bertone always pushing the limits of styling and Engineering or working on an outrageous concept car that was closer to launches needs than anything launcher had on the drawing board called the Stratos zero it was mid-engined and rear-wheel drive and just happened to be powered by a launch of fuvia Powertrain unveiled in November of 1970 at the turn motor show it was a shocking visual statement that Bertoni hoped would draw Lantra away from their established manufacturing relationship with pineapprino was as surprised as anyone when the Stratos zero appeared and a couple months after the Turin show they contacted mucho Bertone and asked to see it up close he was happy to oblige driving the fully functional car across Turin from bertone's Studio to launches headquarters where it impressed launch Executives enough for them to send a contract to develop what would become the production Stratos a few weeks later in February of 1971. just nine months later again at the Turin Motor Show Bertoni displayed the result of this contract the new Stratos HF concept which looked a lot more plausible as a car than the zero and also surprisingly close to the final Stratos it was developed primarily by Bertone with Marcelo gandini designing both the chassis and the body launcher had neither the budget nor the staff to develop and build the car entirely in-house so cheers and other senior launcher men surveyed their Engineers mechanics and rally drivers to figure out what their ultimate rally car should look like and then pass the results onto Bertone one of the key Innovations of the Stratos was the way that lancha interpreted the rules the car was built specifically for group 4 a category called special Grand Touring cars rather than being a tuned up version of a regular production group 3 GT car like most of the group 4 cars the stratus was designed from the ground up for the more permissive group 4 rules and thus only 500 would need to be built this meant that lanja could race a car that was designed specifically for rallying instead of being derived from a regular production car like a Ford Escort or Fiat 124 every aspect of the stratos's design reflects its mission to win rallies it is a short wheelbase wide track and short upturned overhangs to provide clearance when sliding sideways by roadside rocks and burns which together with the compact mid-engined powertrain over the driven Wheels make the car incredibly agile proportional rigidity is comparable to that of a Formula One car from the same era and the top of the rear struts mounted to beefy turrets that look more than up to the task of surviving thousands of jumps from Sweden to Nairobi the engine is cradled in a robust steel cage the top part of which is bolted on so that it can be quickly detached to access or remove the engine which highlights the next rally car wishlist item accessibility Lamborghini Miura style front and rear clamshells can easily be swapped mid-rally in case of damage and also provide great access to the Driveline and suspension which is particularly helpful because launches mechanics and drivers also requested fully adjustable suspension to accommodate driver preferences and varying conditions lancha did not have an engine suitable for this car and Bertoni while hurriedly building the mock-up dropped in a Ferrari V6 with transaxle that they had lying around within a month of launches Engineers sending their requirements to Bertone they visited Ferrari to ask about using the 65 degree V6 and 5-speed transmission from the 246 Dino Enzo was enthusiastic and was even more so after seeing the Stratos HF at Turin but he was only in charge of Ferrari's racing operation at this point Fiat had taken control of Ferrari's Road car production in 1969 and had installed their own managers who would ultimately have to OK launch his request for 500 powertrains this approval finally arrived in December of 1972 more than 18 months after the first request even so contracts were not complete for another three months and launch as general manager wasn't confident enough in Ferrari to give Bertoni the go-ahead to make Stratos chassis and bodies until the end of 1973. outside of the car itself there were plenty of other problems launcha had been losing large sums of money and Fiat acquired the company in 1969 which resulted in jostling for control within the company and the installation of Fiat loyalists money was tight and on top of that the first fuel crisis hit anxious to show results of the Stratos project in this atmosphere of chaos Fiorio debuted the car in racing before it was really ready in November of 1972 at the Tour de course where the rear suspension broke in unusually harsh conditions this feat was repeated the following month at a rally in Spain and it was not until April of 1973 at the Firestone rally that the car scored its first Victory driven Naturally by Sandro monari other successes followed in 1973 including a surprise second place finish at the Target Florio after the big 12-cylinder Ferraris and Alfa Romeos all failed to finish in September the Stratos scored its first major win at the grueling nine day long Tour de France again driven by munnari throughout this period the car raced in group 5 as a prototype because the hundreds of production cars needed for homologation had not yet been built yeah the Stratos was finally homologated on the 1st of October 1974 largely because of furio's desperation strikes had slowed production and fewer than half of the required cars had been built when Fiorio wrote to governing bodies claiming that all the homologation cars were finished they duly sent out FIA inspector Paul freyr who looked around briefly and agreed that whatever had been done was good enough and the papers were issued you say just out this year yes we obligate the Stratos in group four from the 1st of October the very next day at launches home rally of San Remo the cars were racing and munare went on to score the stratos's first of many many wins as a homologated group 4 card launcher threw together challenges for each of the three remaining rounds of the championship and went on to Win It despite the Stratos not even being moligated until October [Applause] this was the first of three World Rally championships that the Stratos won it also won three European rally titles and took three Pilots to driver championships in all the Stratos won 18 World Championship rallies including the Monte Carlo rally four times countless other smaller events and also scored outright wins in the Targa Florio and Tour de France remarkably these tallies could have been much higher 24 valve and turbocharged versions of the Stratos were still being refined when launches parent company Fiat decided that they wanted their own name capturing the glory of international competition fiatsun launches racing teams were merged into a single entity at the end of 1976 and the focus switched to fiat's also superior but much more conventional 131 [Music] oh [Music] the road going Stratos the stradale was built with little enthusiasm and sold with even less success it existed so that the race cars were legal to compete and outside of racing launch a marketed the car little and didn't even bother to certify it for certain European markets let alone lucrative U.S market all in more than 490 were built but new examples remained unsold into 1979 four years after production had ended the car was expensive but not wildly so about the same price as a Porsche 911s or Alfa Romeo Montreal and less than either a Ferrari 308 GT4 or a Lamborghini huracco even a short drive in the Stratos reveals why its Commercial Appeal was limited in Period simply put it is clinically insane it assaults you with its single-minded focus on winning rallies and as it turns out most consumers have expensive cars in the 70s were not interested in being assaulted me however I'm interested I've never driven any car like this this is that I'm I don't have the words which is very unusual for me because I always have words but holy as soon as the car is rolling even at a walking pace you are blown away by the steering it's incredibly light but also communicative and so so responsive the car dart's left and right instinctively and you learn to grip the steering wheel lightly and let it dance in your hands there's a natural feel to it that immediately inspired my confidence and somehow felt familiar almost like the car wasn't there at all I fell in love immediately the intense experience promised by this car is at odds with a strangely practical stripe in the stratos's character [Music] the visibility out the front is wild the windscreen curves sharply around you in a way that makes you feel like you're sitting inside of a helmet while the front of the car slopes down so sharply that you can't really see any cars through the windscreen just Road the clutch is friendly and easy to modulate and the gear change is somehow less effort and smoother than a 246 even though it's basically the same Hardware the long travel rally suspension ride surprisingly comfortably while the short wheelbase and overhangs mean that you can fly into driveways in a way that would make a Supercar driver cringe so hard that they shatter their teeth the trunk is usefully shaped and spacious but hot while one of the famous door Pockets which can indeed fit a helmet swallowed the entire contents of my backpack the engine is trackable at all RPMs and aside from a heavy throttle which makes pulling away smoothly a little tricky the light control forces and compact Dimensions make maneuvering in town a cinch in our case Town means Monte Carlo and what better town in which to maneuver estrados given all its Monte Carlo rally winds foreign out on the open road however the true character of the Stratos emerges and it turns out the car is absolutely batshit I've never experienced any car remotely close to anything like this one after I finished my first spirited Drive in the Stratos I was overwhelmed by emotions but not actual coherent thoughts or Impressions the only thing in my head was colors and noise my hands were shaking I was out of breath and for some reason I was simultaneously laughing and on the verge of sobbing I think it was relief that I had not died but I'm still not really sure [Music] thank you [Music] journalist Carl ludwigsen owned a yellow Stratos and wrote that a spirited drive in it made his hands Shake too so there's that I guess like any Ferrari power plant the Stratos engine is Magic 7800 RPM the throttle response is magnificent and nearly any throttle input causes the car to explode forward with the brutality that makes me incredulous that it's the same engine as a 246 but that's what 2150 pounds does this is accompanied by an explosion of mechanical sounds slobbery induction noises and a fantastic exhaust Roar all of which are comprehensively pornographic where they're on or off the throttle [Music] in fact trailing throttle is perhaps the greatest treat raw nasty beastly stuff that makes us one of the best sounding cars I have ever experienced the gearbox is a pleasure to use with well-defined Gates good synchromesh pleasing slickness and reasonable effort it is probably the least disorienting part of the car even if it is a dog leg shift pattern which brings us to the chassis the part of the Stratos that makes it so different from any other car there is an inherent feeling of instability to it which makes it change direction like nothing else and it does this based on steering input braking input throttle input and sometimes it seems like no input at all the car dances over the road in a way that feels hyperactive and requires quick yet smooth and measured reactions from the driver the car is alive in your hands and it is pissed under heavy braking the car darts this way and that based on who really knows how many cigarettes the man who laid down the asphalt had had that day the chassis feels like barely contained chaos and that is the feeling that comes with driving this car quickly it feels like you are always on the very outer edge of being in control it is very definitely a professional grade tool for professional grade drivers with professional grade reflexes if all of this sounds rather bad I have to correct that impression because somehow it's actually good really good there is a weightlessness and lack of inertia to the entire car that elevates the driver's alertness to the highest possible level the experience is singular because the car is difficult to read and therefore requires constant study from the inquisitive driver Sandro monari said that you could go around the same corner twice and the car would react differently each time he also said that if you did a stage in two minutes it felt like the car had so much capability that you could have done it in a minute and 40 seconds if only you had the skill to extract that from the car you always feel like the car is more capable than you are and as a driving Enthusiast chasing Mastery of this car is intoxicating addictive even but not in a benign way like chocolate covered almonds more like drugs you know this will kill you but it'll be awesome sort of way these driving Impressions highlight that the launch estrados should probably be a controlled substance used by professionals it's highly effective used recklessly it is lethal and for the rest of us dabble occasionally ideally with adult supervision and it will rock your world the intensity of the Stratos experience is the direct result of its mission the idea of Designing a car from the ground up specifically to Rally lasted for a surprisingly short time barely more than a decade and it began with this car [Music] it genuinely redefined what the public could expect a performance car to do and transformed rallying into a mainstream activity in the process it made rallying not just an activity where surviving stages was required to win but also physics-defying pace to watch estrados at speed is one of life's great Pleasures for a car Enthusiast something which is all the more romantic because the car was retired at its prime almost tragically by forces that had nothing to do with how good a car it was but while it was racing it was an absolute force and thankfully the rules required hundreds of these things to be made over the decades this has allowed many Mortals to experience one of the most exciting cars ever made one which just happened to change the landscape of Motorsport and by psyche forever so let's have a reaction holy sh it I've never driven any car like this this is I'm I don't have the words which is very unusual for me because I always have words but holy how have I not heard about this car before or what a insane like wild ride it is like it's absolutely insane I don't I just I'm thinking beside myself this car is everything else sucks unless you want to like live I guess but other than that yeah everything else sucks this car unless you want to live wow [Music] thank you thank you [Music] foreign

Channel: ISSIMI Official

Views: 228,486

Keywords: Lancia Stratos

Id: nJ7iAkzx8Nc

Length: 20min 12sec (1212 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 02 2023