1.5 Automatica

STORY

Giorgetto Giugiaro drew the Delta as a rational European hatchback and it was voted European Car of the Year for 1980. It was a competent Fiat-group family car with a Lancia badge and nothing about it that suggested what came next. What changed it was a rule change: when Group B was abolished after 1986, rallying moved to Group A, which required 5,000 production cars a year. Lancia already had the Delta HF 4WD, and it turned out to be the right shape at the right moment.

From the HF 4WD came the Integrale of 1987, then the 16V of 1989, then the wide-arched Evoluzione of 1991 and the catalysed Evoluzione II of 1993. Each was built to homologate the next rally car, and the rally cars won the World Rally Championship manufacturers' title six years running, from 1987 to 1992, a record no other model holds. Roughly 44,000 of the four-wheel-drive cars were made out of 478,645 first-series Deltas.

The two later Deltas carried the name without the mechanism. The Type 836 of 1993 was front-drive only, its turbocharged HPE the closest thing to an heir; the Type 844 of 2008 was a comfortable five-door sold in Britain as a Chrysler. Neither is what people mean by a Delta.