By Jeff Glucker
A truly insane machine from a wonderfully wild era of motorsport. The Lancia Rally 037 is a true icon. Designed to compete in the Group B era of World Rally racing, the 037 came out swinging with just its rear wheels to provide the power action. This was during a time when all-wheel-drive was emerging as the clear path to rally-racing victory. The Lancia 037 said nuts to that and won a world championship in 1983.
The FCA Heritage channel on YouTube has a quick breakdown of the car by the numbers. Fantastic visuals and some terrific noise are part of this journey. In full race trim, the Rally 037 cranked out over 300 horsepower from its 2.1-liter mid-mounted inline four-cylinder engine. A supercharger helped with that. The power was then sent just to those rear wheels through a ZF gearbox.
Lancia campaigned the 037 for five seasons, and it wore the Martini livery through all of them. Walter Röhrl helped the 037 achieve some of its greatness thanks to first place finishes at Monte Carlo, Greece, and New Zealand. The 037 would place 2nd overall during the 1984 season, 3rd in 1985, and 2nd again in 1986 before bowing out and letting the all-wheel-drive Delta S4 do battle.
Lancia has a healthy history of legendary rally racing machines. The 037 is one of those all time greats. Soak in a bit of its history by clicking play on the video above.
Easily my favorite car on FH4. Such great noises!
Someone near me makes replicas. http://www.carteroni.co.nz/
http://www.carteroni.co.nz/images/slideshow/037_front.jpg
Of course they do in NZ!
The 037 was a great achievement in power to weight (hundreds of kilos lighter than the Audi Quattro) but also in design for field maintenance, keeping them in many rallies.
I remember watching the real 037s on special stages in the middle of the North Island, in the middle of the night on the Rally of NZ, and then a few years later watching the Delta S4s.
Keeping the production Quattro as the basis of their cars, to keep the direct line from production to rally hurt them when everyone else homologated their mid/AWD B cars.
Makes creating tribute S1s easier…