Unrestored example of a Rally legend with racing history!
Complete documentation, uninterrupted history, 4th owner!

In 1970, at the Turin Car Show, the Berstone booth attracted considerable attention with a futuristic wedge on wheels called the „Lancia Stratos Zero“. Marcello Gandini had done an excellent job. Lancia’s PR director Sandro Fiorio and his son Cesare, head of the company’s rally team were able to convince their boss, Ugo Gobbato, that the wedge would be able to replace the Fulvia, that had lost its competitive edge with the years. Gobbato agreed under the condition that the new car would be powered by Ferrari’s Dino V6 engine. One year later, the prototype of the Stratos HF (High Fidelity) was presented at the fair.

Lancia first had the Stratos participate in a race in 1972, with modest success. In 1973, the engineer and former race car driver Mike Parkes was brought in to jump start the Stratos. The following year, Lancia first entered the Stratos into the world championship and it went on to win nearly everything that could be won. It finished the season winning the brand championship by some margin, and did so again in a similar fashion in ’75 and ’76! Nobody recalls today just how many Stratos were built, it is generally assumed that a little over 500 units were produced. Lancia apparently had its hands full trying to meet the homologation requirement of 400. A look into the production calendar confirms that in 1974 the Stratos was assembled in shifts. The present one, bearing the chassis number 1619 and the bodywork number 287, painted Bleu was rolled out on 23 July, together with another nine of its kind. To get the Stratos out as fast as possible, dealerships near and far were given little choice, for the rally car did not turn out to be a bestseller.

The present car also had to wait 4 years, until 1978 before being sold to its first owner, Roberto Mervic of Gorizia, for 6 million Italian lira. An amateur race car driver, he built up his Stratos, which was still able to keep up with the competition, as a Group IV rally car. Old photographs and participant lists show that he took part in several regional rallies in his Stratos.
In 1982, he sold the Stratos to the Nürnberg motorsports specialist Konrad Schmidt, whose company, sms Motorsport, had, among other things, prepared the Audi Quattros Hans Joachim Stuck had used to win the DTM in 1990. Schmidt registered the car in 1984 and kept it until 2001. The consigner acquired the Stratos in 2009 from its third owner and registered it in Austria. He had the mechanical elements overhauled and the chassis reconditioned in accordance with strict Group 4 regulations. He also made sure that the Stratos was driven the way it was intended to, at sporting events or occasional outings, but never too slowly!

The auction presents a Stratos with an uninterrupted history that, like many of its kind, was early on reconfigured as a rally car and used as such. Its history is documented in diverse papers such as production lists, Foglio Compementare, starter lists, the two German registrations, older Fiva passports and numerous photographs. Some of the parts required to reconfigure it to the Stradale version exist, however this Stratos spent its life as a race car and one can tell by looking at it. It has never been restored and exudes a sense of history from every crack. This is a rare opportunity to become the new owner of a legend!

FIN: 829AR0001619, Motor: 829A000001081 (lt. Fiva-Pass), Karosserienummer: 287, Hubraum: 2.418 ccm/V6, Getriebe: 5-Gang, Farbe: Bleu/Nero, Leistung: 190 PS, Papiere: Österreichische Einzelgenehmigung