Lancia was the force of rallying in the late-80s/early 90s. As the era of Group B was banned and evolved into Group A 'production' rules in 1987, Lancia won its first WRC season with the Lancia Delta 4WD, driven by Finn Juha Kankkunen. Italy's Miki Biasion won it the two years, making it a three-peat for the compact super-hot hatchback, and had it not been for Carlos Sainz winning in 1990, Kankkunen's title in 1991 may have meant five in a row for the Integrale. Of course, talking manufacturers championship, Lancia did in fact manage to scoop up six of those, in a row, from 1978-1992 with the Integrale.
All this helped continue and create the legend that is Lancia and the Integrale. So it's quite exciting to see this Lancia appear for sale on DRIVEN.CO.NZ while we were trawling with a key word of 'Evolution'. Approaching 30 years old, with just 66,000km on the clock, the 1991 model is a 16v (when the four-valve per-cylinder head replaced the early 8v).
A genuine left-hand drive, as the majority of Integrales were, it arrived in NZ five years ago, and scored a full respray.
The Christchurch seller says the cam belt (and water pump) was replaced 1000km ago - an important factor with these engines - while its Sparco race seats, Evolution wheels and factory 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo with 147kW, good for 0-100km/h between 5.7-6.2 seconds (depending on your source) is good for bragging, but more as hypothetical reverence these days, as this old Italian needs to be treated with the respect it deserves.
All the right brand names are there: along with the Sparco seats, there's a Momo wheel, Ohlins suspension and, er, MARTIN1 RACING livery on the rear wing. Maybe the previous owner's name was Martin, rather than the iconic Martini alcohol/livery?
While the $44,490 price isn't cheap, icons rarely are, and the value of these things is on the way up rather than down.
See the Lancia's for-sale listing here, while it lasts.
And for more Group A goodness, in the world's largest collection of Nissan Pulsar GTI-Rs.
Or read about a recent owner's Celica GT-Four here.
