One to Buy: 5600km Nero Met. / Verde 1985 Lancia Delta S4 Stradale
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In order to beat the all-conquering Peugeot 205 T16, the engineers at Lancia and its competition arm Abarth had to come up with a remarkable machine that, like its French rival, was designed from the ground up at vast expense.
In a similar vein to the T16, the resultant Delta S4 mimicked Lancia’s mainstream offerings but under the skin was a completely different animal.
The starting point was a brand new composite reinforced tubular steel spaceframe to which additional subframes were attached at either end. Into this, Lancia dropped a supercharged and turbocharged inline four cylinder engine developed specifically for the task at hand.
Transmission was through a five-speed gearbox and full-time four-wheel drive system. The finished article was then draped in a chunky but lightweight and aerodynamically efficient body.
Although 200 examples of the road-going Delta S4 ostensibly had to be built in order for homologation to be approved, it is now widely considered that less than half that figure were produced.
Of these, the overwhelming majority were configured in red with tan upholstery, however, currently on offer at the Girardo & Co. showroom in Oxfordshire is one of the lesser seen Nero Metallizzato S4s which was equipped with rarer still Verde alcantara upholstery.
Ordered new by Paul Dawson of Cadogan Lane in the Kensington and Chelsea borough of London, chassis ‘017’ was supplied via Lancia main dealer Coombs of Guildford and first registered on July 17th 1987. The car then departed for France in 1990 where it resided in the hands of two collectors for the next 35 years.
Now showing 5600km on the odometer, chassis ‘017’ is accompanied with a fully documented history and comes fresh from a recent service by the renowned Baldi brothers in Turin.
