Completely wonderful Lancia 037 for sale
Not the Martini colours, but this Olio Fiat livery is a very close second
Back in 2017, the World Rally Championship underwent a drastic overhaul that’d see cars develop more power, sprout bigger wings and gain trick active differentials to crank the speed - and the wow-factor - through the roof. And boy, did it deliver. Watching Sebastien Ogier thread a 380hp, carbon-winged hatchback through the single-track lanes of the Rally Monte Carlo was (and still is) a sight to behold - albeit one while poking your head up from the back of the sofa.
Well, that's as close as we’ll get to a modern-day Group B era. What makes today’s rally cars so incredible is that they’re comfortably quicker than their fire-spitting ancestors of the mid-'80s, and a lot safer too. But modern rallying regulations are extremely prescriptive to ensure as close to a level playing field as possible, which generates fantastically close rallying at the expense of wild, unhinged creations we saw when Group B was in its pomp. You’d never see anything as brutish as an S1 Audi Quattro, as outrageous as a Metro 6R4 or as downright unhinged as the car you see here: the Lancia 037.
The word 'awesome' is overused these days, but if anything it doesn’t do justice to what Lancia concocted for the then-new Group B regulations in the early '80s. Like its Stratos predecessor, the 037 would be built from the ground-up for rallying, with the only commonality with a road-going Lancia being the Montecarlo-derived centre section. Bolted either side of it were tubular steel subframes with double wishbone suspension all round and meaty, dual shock absorbers per rear wheel to handle the punishing terrain of rally stage. That all came wrapped in an aggressive, Pininfarina-designed kevlar body, resulting in a kerb weight under a tonne.
Even against a field of bewinged homologation specials , the 037 still stood out like a sore thumb. It didn’t sound like any of its rivals, either. The Stratos V6 was ditched in favour of a supercharged, transverse 2.0-litre four-cylinder, a tweaked version of the 131 Abarth Rally motor. That gave the 037 wail that’d make a banshee blink twice, and a claimed 280hp sent to its rear wheels. And with only two driven wheels, the 037 was always going to be at a disadvantage against the all-wheel drive Quattros on loose surfaces, but ingenious strategy (and some dastardly stunts) from the Lancia team led the 037 to the constructors’ title in 1983 - beating Audi in the process.
The car we have here isn’t one of the Martini-liveried factory cars from the era, but it’s still carrying one of the most iconic colour schemes worn by a 037. Chassis 412 made its competition debut at the 1984 Italian Rally Championship at the hands of Fabrizio Tabaton, who claimed five victories and a runner up spot in the title chase. The car wore the Olio Fiat livery you see here during the 84 season, switching to black and gold Esso colours for 1985. Tabaton would win the first round of the championship, but he’d switch to the newer Delta S4 mid-season, leaving the 037 in privateer hands. It’d win several rallies across Italian throughout the decade, and has made several historic appearances while under the ownership of private collectors more recently.
Then, in 2022, it was sent to legendary Abarth and Lancia specialists, Elio and Giovanni Baldi, for a comprehensive mechanical overhaul. 40-year-old Group B cars tend to look a bit tatty these days, especially if they’re still regularly bought out for historic rallies, but chassis 412 arguably looks better than it would have done when new. It’s covered 250 miles since the work’s been carried out, including a run Eifel Rally Festival last year, but is otherwise as close to a box-fresh 037 as you’ll find. Expect to pay through the nose to call it your own, and the chances are there’s already a formally queue of wealthy folk ready to spend some serious cash on it. Wonder if we’ll be saying the same thing about the current Rally1 cars in 40 years time, eh?
Magnificent machines.
Edit:
See also the gratuitous 037 content in the epic video from Harris:
How times change....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xDAy_2WaNMQ&pp=y...
Not beautiful in the classic sense of the word, but as Group B cars went, it was a stunning looking car
Resulted in the 83 World Championship win, with a little help from Walter, obviously.
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