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John Benton’s most beloved car is really the culmination of his life’s experience
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Films:
This Lancia Delta Integrale Evo II Is Perfectly Packaged
The Wikipedia entry has a lot on the whole series and Lancia Delta, and a fair amount on this specific car. The URL is below for those interested. The carrosserie for this series of Delta starts as a Giorgetto Giugiaro design, which explains a lot. Italdesign also did the VW Golf, and generated, as much as any single design studio, the canonical shape of these early ‘hot hatches’.
Since the Evo II was, allegedly, introduced in June 1993, I am confused as to how it is possible to register this car in California and drive it on public roads. Typically you need to be beyond the 25 year mark before the cars can be imported. Perhaps Bryan can tell us more.
The diversity of this series of short films is wonderful. I just love these biographies of people from all walks of life who are absolutely soaked in the literature and knowledge of their corner of motorsport. This kind of interview is so different from the Pebble Beach straw hat crowd and all their ilk. Here, specifically, is the type of biography and interview that Petrolicious so very well. Any idiot can find something to like in a Ferrari. Films like this one go so far beyond that.
Interesting how much these cars look alike – http://www.turbododge.com/forums/attachments/cars-sale/96858d1384831925-1986-dodge-omni-glh-t-tii-img_1736.jpg
I’m sure they don’t perform alike but they sure do look similar. The Dodge was my first car ever. My dad gave it to me when I was 15.
This profile shows up first on the VW Rabbit/Golf, does it not? Giugiaro at Italdesign did the Rabbit version, at the end of the 70’s, and that is, I am inclined to think, the first high volume publication of this kind of design. The Lancia Delta is far more refined, but has these basic elements.
https://www.google.com/search?q=vw+rabbit&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=800&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS8vPI68fOAhUDTSYKHQTTD0oQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=vw+rabbit+profile&imgrc=klQ3MBVQq_YawM\%3A
Okay. The Omni, started life as a Simca Horizon. And “the Horizon was developed by Chrysler Europe under the codename C2. It was designed in the United Kingdom at the Whitley design studio by Roy Axe.” The introduction of the Horizon was in 1978, and the VW Golf was introduced in 1971. So the Italdesign VW really does define the shape first, that later becomes the iconic shape for the hot hatch through the 1980s and reaches a fuller state of development in cars like the Lancia Delta Intergrale in the 1990s. After that the crisp angles disappear, and the whole family of shapes for these cars becomes something quite different.
Quote above is Wikipedia.
Good info! I just remember driving the s\%$# out of my Omni going through numerous clutches and tires. I tortured that car. I think the initial cost was somewhere around 6k, though it was ultimately totaled on an icy bridge.
I must say, I do love these videos of lesser known cars and the folks that care for them. I look forward to new postings every Tuesday.
