The family hatchback that won the World Rally Championship six years running, then spent thirty years underpriced. A five-figure way into a car that beat everything more exotic than it, and it is still climbing.
The car
The Delta began as an ordinary Giugiaro-drawn family hatchback. Lancia turned it into the most dominant rally car of its era. When Group B was banned after the deaths of 1986, the championship moved to Group A, which required cars built on genuine production models, and the Delta Integrale inherited the sport and did not give it back. Six consecutive Constructors' titles from 1987 to 1992, a record that still stands, with drivers' championships for Juha Kankkunen and Miki Biasion. A shopping car that beat the exotics, season after season.
The versions
Four steps up the ladder. The 8-valve of 1987 started the dynasty; the 16-valve of 1989 added power and a wider track; the Evoluzione I of 1991 brought the blistered arches and the adjustable rear spoiler, the last version homologated for the works team; and the Evoluzione II of 1993, catalysed and trimmed in Recaro and Momo, hand-built by Maggiora, is the one collectors chase. Then the special editions, twelve in all, the Martini 5 and 6, Club Italia's fifteen cars, which trade at twice a standard car or more.
The numbers and the money
Two litres, turbocharged, four-wheel drive throughout, around 210 horsepower in Evo form, nought to a hundred in the high fives, about 1,300 kilograms. The market took thirty years to notice. A driver-grade car changed hands around nine thousand pounds in 2017; today a clean 8-valve runs from the mid-teens, a good 16-valve in the thirties to forties, an Evo I into the fifties and sixties, and a concours Evo II past eighty-five thousand, with the best special editions well beyond a hundred. Values on unmodified, original cars have roughly doubled in five years and are still moving. It remains a five-figure way into a championship car whose period rivals sit in six and seven.
What to watch
Rust is the killer: the arches, the sills, the screen surrounds and the rear roof edge. Cambelts are short and non-negotiable, and an overdue one is a warning about everything else. Provenance is now most of the value, so two traps matter. Evo I cars get dressed up as the pricier Evo II, where the differences are slight. And cars sold new in Switzerland and some other markets carried the catalysed 8-valve engine where a 16-valve is assumed. Buy the documentation before the car.
At a glance
The TGC view
The Collector's Drive is for cars that marked their time and have held or gained since, not the obvious blue chips. The Integrale is the model case: a championship pedigree the market underpriced for decades, still attainable, still moving. We point clients toward the version and the provenance that hold, and the specialists who authenticate a car before the money changes hands.
Want us to arrange it?
We hold the relationships, the rooms and the access. Tell us the dates and we handle the rest.
Front wheel drive, inboard discs, no clutch pedal, a drag coefficient of 0.355 and Car of the Year for 1968. Then the engine failed under warranty and took the company with it. German dealers ask about fifteen thousand euros.
Read the review →A Maserati-engined grand tourer with hydropneumatic suspension and self-centring power steering, the most advanced GT of its day, sold under a badge the market still prices as a curiosity. Averages under forty thousand dollars.
Read the review →The 1950s supercar that put racing technology on the road: the first production sports car with fuel injection, doors hinged at the roof because the frame left no other way, and the shape everything since has answered to. This is the blue chip, not the bargain.
Read the review →