Car of the Week — Week 143: Lancia Stratos '73

If the automotive industry has taught us anything, it's that there's nothing quite as bewitching — and scary — as a pissed off Italian.

The Lancia Stratos won the World Rally Championship three years in a row from 1974. It looks more like a TAMIYA racecar than an actual, road legal, production car. It has a freaking Ferrari engine in it, which sounds like a swarm of enraged mechanical bees when you wring it out. It's shod with bias ply tyres. It has no ABS. And yet somehow, none of the aforementioned are the most outlandish part of the car. No — that distinction would go to its loose rear end, because the Stratos is easily among the most tail happy cars you can drive in this game, and yes, I'm even including air cooled 911s in this comparison.

To be entirely fair, the Stratos' tail happiness isn't unreasonable or unconditional, unlike those of an FC RX-7 or a Honda Beat. There is a logical, logistical flow to driving the thing; it's just that the Stratos has very little tolerance and forgiveness for an unskilled, imprecise driver. With soft springs, stiletto–thin tyres, a rather high cg, and — very puzzlingly for an RMR car — identically sized tyres front and rear, the way a Stratos corners is such that the rear outside tyres are always at the limit of their grip, since they are the limiting factor to how fast it can corner. Any slight twitch of the steering wheel once the car is off neutral having dove into a corner then, be it to adjust an ill–judged line or to correct an overzealous slide, simply causes the rear tyres to overwhelm instantly, sending the car into a spin or an inescapable fishtail. The Stratos is one of those cars that you need to constantly steer to keep straight, and as such, is very choosy with its drivers, demanding that they treat this maliciously moody mistress gently with due understanding and respect and be on top of her at all times, lest they suddenly find most of her svelte, supermodel–shaming 980kg (2,161lbs) body on top of them instead.

That said, for the professional dom who does manage to wrestle the Stratos to bend to their will, the Stratos is a properly quick car even by today's standards. It is pretty much THE N100 car in the game when detuned, and having a 5 speed gearbox in the seventies was a huge deal. The driving experience is so raw and so demanding that it'd make even hardcore 911 fans wince and Lotus purists' faces turn British Racing Green with jealousy. Just like a pissed off Italian supermodel, it's not really my thing. It's best enjoyed when admired from afar, and god help you if you ever get involved with her. And I don't tend to like being in abusive relationships that much.