The news that Lancia is to revive the Delta as an electric car as part of a big brand rebuild has caused a spot of consternation.
Some people can’t believe that Lancia’s owner, Stellantis, would do such an anodyne thing as fit electric motors to such an iconic model. This is a brand that gave us the HF and HF Integrale Deltas, after all, they say. Those were World Rally Championship-winning monsters that shot flames as they growled, whooshed and whistled along the special stages. Yet Lancia is now going to use that legacy to create a new EV? Some people are stunned.
I’m not. For a start, if a car maker were thinking of creating a brand new car that wouldn’t be electrified, that really would be stunning news, because there would end up being quite a lot of places where it couldn’t be sold. But more than that, it’s not like Lancia hasn’t already created a Delta that failed to live up to its name.
It’s like the outcry when it was announced that Disney had bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise. Some people stamped their feet and whinged that the company behind Mickey Mouse would ruin what was a great institution. To which it was worth reminding them of Jar Jar Binks. For those with a fuzzy memory of this character, conceived by Star Wars originator Lucasfilm, he appeared in Star Wars Episodes 1, 2 and 3, the late 1990s and early 2000s prequels to the 1970s and 1980s films. He was clumsy, with big floppy ears and a stupid voice, and apparently inspired by Disney’s Goofy. And he was a disaster – so much so that by the third film, he had been reduced to a non-speaking part.
When people worried about Disney ruining the Star Wars legacy, then, they had forgotten that a lot of the work had already been done. And so back to Lancia, which pulled the plug on UK sales in 1994, as you might remember. A Delta – and I think it would have been a brilliant fast one – was the last Lancia to be officially sold here, I believe.
To date, Lancia hasn’t officially bothered coming back. Although if you squint a bit, it sort of did. From 2008, it made a Delta that was eventually imported to the UK, only rebadged as a Chrysler. I had literally forgotten about it until researching the Delta just now, when I found pictures of me driving it for this magazine. I must have written a fair chunk of our 2011 road test, in which we decided it was “too patchy to recommend”.
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A modern EV interpretation of the Delta, a la Mini, Fiat 500, new Renault 5? Yes please.
Who needs to drop £1m on an E-Legend EL1 to recreate their Kankkunen fantasies of yesteryear if Stellantis will do you an electric Integrale for £50k...
Electronic is the only way we're getting a new Lancia Delta - just accept reality. Let's recall Lancia used to be luxurious - even when they made public cars they cost more than Fiat's and more luxurious cabins plus better workmanship while admittedly selling in way smaller volumes. If the new gigant company believes Lancia fits in their sales strategy -- well and good. An electric Delta may end up absolutely great - remains to be seen.
The Delta was a rebadged Ritmo/Strada.