Drive
Uncovering a world rally legend, the Lancia Delta Integrale 16V
We chat with Bernard Cecchele about his Lancia Delta Integrale.
by Alex Forrest
Published
2 min read
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Media duration: 13minutesmins
Drive
2 min readDrive
We chat with Bernard Cecchele about his Lancia Delta Integrale.
by Alex Forrest
Published
2 min read
Text size
by Alex Forrest
Published
Text size
Watch Alex's chat with Bernard about his Lancia Delta Integrale before they take it for a drive
Bernard Cecchele’s workshop is a full-time mechanical business, a bustling place ringing and rumbling to the sound of air tools and engines.
But in one corner sits a Lancia Scorpion, two Datsun 240Z competition cars, and a Mitsubishi Evo VIII race car. Nearby is a Westfield sports car with a Nissan RB20 engine in it.
They’re hinting at what’s sitting in the storage facility behind the workshop.
As that garage door goes up, we are greeted by the most successful rally car ever made: a Lancia Delta Integrale. This is a 1990 model, with the desirable 16-valve cylinder head to help the free-revving turbocharged four-cylinder engine make 200 horsepower.
Not a huge output by today’s standards, but plenty in a four-wheel drive hatchback weighing around 1200kg.
The car is in excellent, original preserved condition, and appears never to have been driven in anger.
Bernard said the Lancia was imported from Japan, and he bought it from an enthusiast in Sydney.
He said he’s particularly a fan of the Integrale’s dashboard, which is comprehensively equipped with gauges to monitor all aspects of the car’s mechanicals, including a 1980s-style turbo boost gauge.
The tachometer moves in the opposite direction of a regular tacho, with the needle sweeping right to left as revs climb.
“When the speedo and the tacho needles meet each other, you’re having fun,” he said, referring to the occasions he’s driven it in controlled conditions.
On the road, it’s the size of the Delta and its closeness to the ground that really stand out. The drivetrain has the whine of a rally car’s mechanicals, and the gauges dance as the turbo spools up before boost pressure is released.
This raw, twitchy thoroughbred is at home on the road, singing between second and third gears.
The Lancia Delta Integrale was the chariot of champions 35 years ago.
Today, if you’re lucky this one can be seen on Perth roads with its proud driver at the wheel of this rare classic, watching those gauges as they put a rather large smile on his own dial.
