I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’re in the middle of the Lancia Renaissance. Pretty neat, huh? It turns out the storied Italian brand, which Top Gear once said made the greatest number of great cars but has long been hung out to dry with rebadged Chryslers, is in the middle of a gritty and modern reboot. Last year, that started with the unveiling of a new logo, a new 10-year plan and an expansion into new European markets. Now we seem poised to see the electric rebirth of an icon: the Lancia Stratos.
Lancia CEO Luca Napolitano had this to say on his LinkedIn page two weeks ago (I thought we were connected, but I guess not) which we missed until the UK’s Autocar reported on it today:
Autocar says that on April 15, when we Americans will start scrambling to file our taxes, Lancia will host an event where it will dive into the details of that plan (Stellantis is pretty good about this) and unveil a new Stratos. Like most high-end car brands, Lancia is expected to go all-EV, this time by 2028, so this Stratos will be an electric one.
(Part of the Lancia reboot involves a new design language. The example they gave us last year sort of looked like a gaming mouse, but I am eager to see what it looks like when applied to an actual car and not some teenager’s marathon Call of Duty marathon.)
For those unfamiliar, the O.G. Lancia Stratos HF was a mid-engined sports car built in the mid-1970s that mixed Bertone design with a Ferrari Dino-sourced V6 and an attitude problem that made it a serious contender on the rally circuit. In the pre-4WD era of rallying, the Stratos proved massively successful, winning multiple World Rally Championship titles and further cementing the brand’s motorsports legend.
That’s a legend that’s sadly gone these days, but the Stratos remains fondly remembered—and respected—by enthusiasts all over the world. So much so that Pininfarina launched the so-called New Statos in 2018 with Ferrari 430 Scuderia guts. That car had a weird production story; the design was unveiled way back in 2010, and its planned 25-car run only really started getting into owner hands a few years ago.
But it’s proof of how much people love the Stratos, and Lancia would be stupid to let that go to waste. Clearly, this new EV will be a proper homage—we can tell that from the taillights alone. All other details, including its powertrain, production plans and whether it’ll come to North America, remain shrouded in mystery.
Regardless, this will be something interesting to watch for April. Is it the start of a real Lancia comeback? Hey, anything’s better than re-badging Chrysler 300s and hoping nobody in Italy would notice.
The second new Ferrari based Stratos is in Tiburon with manufacturer plates, I’ve seen it twice. I haven’t seen it since covid though. I was next to the guy in traffic and I said, hey I thought there was only one of those and he said, this is #2 with his fingers.
Ouch the 2018 copy looks *TERRIBLE* from that angle.
Give it pop up lights or perhaps sliding light covers.Anything to hide the ruinous look
Is it wrong to hope for a distinctly Italian approach to EV tuning?
What would that even be? The problem with EV power delivery is that it’s basically perfect. Perfect is boring, but deliberately introducing flaws doesn’t feel like the path forward.
If electric motor power delivery was perfect then why are there so many things with electric motors in them that are in many ways different? In this instance, it has little to do with the actual motor/s but is all about the control of it and how that control coexists in the wider context of the car. And there are many, many potential interpretations of how this could be achieved. Just as in ICEworld…
Its Italian you don’t have to deliberately introduce flaws.
Being “Stratos-inspired” is better than 99 percent of the other ways to be inspired.
How many years has it been since Lanica designed and built their own car? Fifteen? Twenty? More? I know of absolutely no reason to expect they can suddenly pull off a Stratos. Any inspiration will have come only from old copies of Quattroruote piled up as restroom accessories.
Replacing the Dino V6 with an electric motor should be classed as a war crime.
If someone’s buying, I’ll take two originals thanks.
A rally-ed up one like your picture and a red one with a single offset white stripe for the street.
I’ll likely never see one in the wild, but it warms my cockles to know there’s a few out there. I do hope several end up in the hands of people who will actually hoon them as they deserve
Chances this is an electric crossover with a wedgy front end?
That would be terrible.
Wheeljack livery, please.
The original Lancia Stratos was also a delightfully light and tossable car, weighing in around 2,100 lbs.
I hope this modern homage EV, with batteries, is at sub-3,000 lb weight ready to drive. If anyone can pull that off, Lancia sure as hell can. There’s a lot of heritage there to live up to.
And…
…GODDAMN, ‘DAT ASS.
Wouldn’t be surprised, but would be very disappointed, if it turns out to be based on the eVMP platform, and basically just a reskinned e-308
To some extent I feel like all EVs are just reskinned versions of the same car, over and over again. I mean, there are obvious differences, but the drivetrain kinda just is what it is. You get one or a few DC motors, with single-speed gear reductions, all the torque all the time, and basically no noise. It’s harder to differentiate the driving experience between EVs than it is with ICE, and electric motors are so inherently smooth in their power delivery that it sucks some of the fun out of driving. I know this trope has been beaten to death, but it’s still true.
I think I mentioned it here at the Autopian somewhere, but what we’re seeing is a shock similar to what watchmakers faced when quartz become a thing. Basically, a quartz Cartier will be as precise and smooth as any $10 quartz knock off. Likewise, if all goes well, a 500hp muscle car will drive and handle and accelerate the same as any econobox, at least while outside a track (that is, always).
Like watches, cars will sell more and more based on emotion and illusion. As technology commoditizes performance and build quality, expect a new wave of homages and reboots and etc.
I’m not even saying it is a bad thing – maybe body stiles will be seasonal, and like you can buy today a flared jeans, maybe soon it will be normal having someone offer a modern “fifties style” finned land barge, or a 70’s inspired muscle car.
Does that make Seiko Tesla?