Lancia Delta

The first Delta was a five-door hatchback designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro's Italdesign. It went on sale in 1979 and was voted European Car of the Year for 1980. Saab sold it in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway from 1980 to 1982 as the Saab-Lancia 600. Later generations debuted in 1993 and 2008.

The rally story starts with a rule change. Group B was shut down after a string of fatal accidents at the end of the 1986 season, and Group A took over, with homologation rules that required at least 5,000 cars in 12 months. Lancia had just unveiled the Delta HF 4WD in April 1986, with a turbocharged 2.0-liter four and permanent AWD based on the system from the Delta S4 Group B car. It wasn't designed with rallying in mind, but it made a good Group A base. In 1987 the HF 4WD won 9 of 13 rounds, the manufacturers' title, and the drivers' title for Juha Kankkunen.

From there the road car kept changing so the rally car could. The HF integrale arrived in September 1987 with 185 PS, the 16-valve version followed in March 1989 with 200 PS, and the wide-arched Evoluzione came in late 1991 with 210 PS. The last Evoluzione II made 215 PS. The integrale's center differential normally sent 56 percent of the torque to the front and 44 percent to the rear, with a Torsen unit at the back. Lancia officially quit rallying after winning both 1991 titles, yet factory-developed Evos run by the privateer Jolly Club won the sixth straight manufacturers' crown in 1992. HF Deltas scored 46 WRC wins in all, plus drivers' titles for Kankkunen (1987 and 1991) and Miki Biasion (1988 and 1989). Lancia built 44,296 Integrales out of 478,645 first-generation Deltas.