If there’s one thing most car enthusiasts regret
about Sergio Marchionne’s reign at Fiat Chrysler it’s the fact that he let the
Lancia brand die a slow and painful death. Sure, Lancia built a new Delta,
but it had nothing to do with the original model that brought the brand so many
rallying victories and street credibility in the 1980s.
As you may have heard, there is a new Lancia Delta
coming our way, but the company behind it is not FCA. Automobili Amos, a small
Italian firm founded by racing driver Eugenio Amos, teased its Lancia Delta
restomod earlier this year, and now it’s releasing more juicy details.
Officially called Automobili Amos Lancia Delta
Futurista, the project will be unveiled at the Grand Basel show (September 6-9)
in Switzerland. Boasting a Verde Brinzio paintwork, the Delta has been entirely
redesigned. It features a wider aluminum body crafted by hand, a carbon fiber
front, completely reworked engine and mechanicals, and a superb interior inspired
by the Group B Delta S4 Stradale.
Despite the many changes it adopts (the most obvious
of which is the ditching of the rear doors), the Delta Futurista manages to
retain the character and spirit of the original all-wheel-drive hatchback. That
was something Eugenio Amos strived for all along.
He goes on to describe the car as “pure, analog, raw
and essential,” and explains he chose the Delta because it’s the car that made
him “fall in love with cars in the first place” at the age of seven. Although
he talks about passion, nostalgia, and euphoria, which are feelings that cannot
be measured in numbers, Eugenio Amos does disclose three key numbers about the
Delta Futurista.
Thanks to the lightweight construction, the car tips
the scales at 1,250 kg and has about 330 horsepower — it uses the
standard Delta Integrale 16v model as a donor vehicle. In an era of
sophisticated hypercars, that doesn’t make for a particularly spectacular
power-to-weight ratio, but who cares about that? It’s a reborn Lancia Delta
that looks fantastic and should drive even better than the original. There’s only one (and very
serious) drawback we can think of: it costs € 300,000 (US$ 347,000).