I Regret To Inform You That The Lancia Delta Integrale Is Somehow Better Than You Thought It Was

A little while back in our ‘Tales from the Slack” series, Matt told you your professionally cranky goth car designer (moi) had been invited to another swanky Car Design Event, laid on by the same lovely people who invited me to a similar event back in March. This time, however, the proceedings were going to take on a slightly different flavor.

Instead of being presented with some of the latest concepts from the manufacturers supporting the occasion, there would be an array of classic cars from their heritage fleets for attendees to look at and drive. Given OEMs get their best historical toys out about as often as David gives out pay raises, this was an opportunity not to be missed.

The was at the newly opened Nationales Automuseum in Dietzhölztal, about another hour north of Wetzlar – in other words, the butt end of nowhere. The museum opened about a year ago and is home to the Loh collection. Professor Doctor (this is a peculiarly German combination of honorifics) Friedhelm Loh is a leading German industrialist and he has quietly been amassing a frankly astonishing collection of cars over the years.

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There were about 150 cars, far too many to list here, but the breadth of it runs from the only privately owned Le Mans-winning Audi and Niki Lauda’s BMW M1 Procar to a one-off Maybach Exelero and a genuine Jeff Gordon NASCAR Monte Carlos, one of the rare few outside North America. Did you know the original AMG Red Pig upset Mercedes so much they commissioned their own Silver Pig (Slibersau)? Guess where it is. Prf. Dr Loh is originally from the area, so when he decided to put his cars on display for the public, he found a local derelict boiler plant and turned it into a museum.

But I wasn’t there to gawp and enjoy free food and booze (only after driving was done for the day. I hasten to add – I’m a professional), I was there to drive. Not all the cars that were promised materialized, and disappointingly there were other filthy hacks present whom I had to fight off to make sure I grasped the keys to the cars our members asked me to have a go in. Here then (in several parts, there will be follow-up pieces soon) and in no particular order for those of you who haven’t seen the reels on Instagram (honestly why do I bother?) is what I got to have a go in, and what I thought.

Lancia Delta Integrale

This was the one. Out of the entire classic car buffet that had been laid out for us, if I didn’t get to drive this car I would have failed you and myself. On a personal level, this car represents the perfect intersection of everything dear to my black heart: a modernist Italian design by the maestro Giugiaro; affordable (when new); and blue-chip motorsport heritage. It’s probably the greatest rally car ever made – the Delta Integrale won six world rally championships between 1987 and 1992 and four drivers titles.

 

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Back when I could afford to start buying car magazines in the late eighties, every single one said the Delta Integrale was the fastest point-to-point car you could buy. Supercars of the day like the 911 or 348 were a pain in the ass to use and stabby in their road manners. Pushing one on a wet road would see you exiting stage left through a hedge backward. The handy size of the Delta and the security of its four-wheel drive would see you covering ground at a rate of knots. Now having driven one, I can see what everyone was raving about.

Let’s get the cliches out of the way first. The ergonomics are horrible. It’s a hot day and it takes me five minutes to find the window switches, buried down by the handbrake, but there is a certain pleasing geometry to the squareness of the rest of the dashboard layout. If I adjust the seat so I can get the clutch to the floor, I can’t get my hands between the bottom of the steering wheel and my knees. The pedals are offset, presumably because Turin University doesn’t have an ergonomics department. The indicator stalk is shorter than the one for the headlights – just like on the Mondial. They look like they’re identical parts, betraying the 1979 origins of the base Delta even though this is a late ‘Evoluzione’ model dating from the early nineties.

Build quality? Crap. The doors close with a twang. As I crack the motor into life the whole dashboard jumps about an inch. I am not kidding. The rev counter sits at the 4 o’clock position with the engine idling, like a sixties Grand Prix car. The shifter, a rubbery phallus with a leather gaiter, sort of points in the general direction of the gear you’re trying to select without much in the way of conviction. Plenty of revs are required to pull away to overcome the inertia of the four-wheel-drive system, and because the throttle response is best described as elastic.

The engine, a transverse sixteen-valve turbocharged unit, was super trick for its time. Unfortunately, it was a time when for road cars, these technologies were still in their infancy. There’s no lag as such, more a fraction of a second delay in response as you nail the throttle. It sounds gloriously buzzy in the way all the best Italian engines are, with a gentle turbo whistle on a trailing throttle. The best way to get going is to keep your foot in – with just over 200bhp and all that grip you’re never going to get into trouble unless you cock up a “50 m, jump into immediate right-hand bend severity 2 tightens.”

The Integrale is so wieldy – you really can sense the four wheels at each corner and the whole thing pivoting around your ass as you chuck it about. The steering is fabulous – just two turns between the lock stops. It’s instantly responsive and full of information. Even the brakes, the one dynamic area where older cars can sometimes show their age, are amazing. But the Integrale has so much grip and fidelity you need to use them much less often than you think. Once outside Dietzhölztal the roads become the sort of mountain switchbacks the Integrale was absolutely born for. Second gear on the approach, half a turn on the Momo wheel, breathe on the brake pedal, mat it on the way out, the boost swells and all of a sudden I’ve become Juha Kankkunen. It’s one of those cars that goads you into driving it on the door handles. I’m laughing like a loon and marveling at the same time.

How is it possible this innocuous little Italian family hatch from the seventies has been transformed into such a terrific tarmac stage go-kart? The original Delta is little more than a square-edged design curio  – the Integrale is its final, definitive form. It’s so alive, so communicative, and plenty fast enough: 0-60 is quoted as 5.7 with a top speed of 137, although given it looks like a shapely house brick I imagine the wind noise would be so bad at that speed you’d need rally style headsets to talk to your passengers. You’ll be having too much fun to care.

Sometimes driving old cars, even the stone-cold classics and especially the performance ones can be an exercise in disappointment. There’s just no way they can live up to the mythology surrounding them. Not in this case. The Integrale deserves every bit of its reputation and more. What an amazing thing. I loved it so much my mind immediately turned to thoughts of replacing the Mondial with one. Until I saw the price the Evo models go for. All that motorsport pedigree has its price.

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