Lancia Rally 037

The Full Story

In 1980, FISA, the international governing body for motorsport, devised a new regulatory framework that would take effect from the 1982 season, based around the so-called Group A, B, and N. Homologation in Group B required the production of just 200 road-going cars for sale to the public, while a further 20 cars would be so-called “evolution” models that maintained the base car’s general characteristics but were quite extensively modified for racing purposes.

Meanwhile, at the 1980 Geneva Motor Show, Audi presented the revolutionary Quattro, a turbocharged coupé equipped with permanent four-wheel-drive, a technology that had until then rarely been seen outside the realm of military and off-road vehicles. Audi began competing with the Quattro in the World Rally Championship the following year, and it quickly became apparent that four-wheel-drive was the future of rallies.

From the start of the 1982 season, the World Rally Championship was to be run under these new Group B regulations and that left the Fiat Group (the winner of the 1980 championship with the 131 Abarth) in a difficult position. With no chance of developing and building a four-wheel-drive contender to Audi in time for the 1982 rally season, the engineers at Fiat’s racing arm Abarth had no choice but to do what Italians do best: get creative.

Abarth’s men designed a light, nimble mid-engined car around proven technology, easy to work on and quickly repairable between the rally stages. Abarth had also created the Fiat 131 Group 4 car, which had scored three World Rally Championships in four years during the late 1970s. Although very loosely based on the Beta Monte Carlo, primarily for marketing purposes, the new Group B machine was initially simply dubbed the Lancia Rally. It has, however, become famous as the Lancia 037, which is a reference to the Abarth's project number for this program; SE037.

Carried over from the Montecarlo road car was the center section of the monocoque chassis. Welded to either end of the cockpit were bespoke steel tubular subframes, onto which all the major running gear was bolted. Suspension was by double wishbones on all four corners with twin dampers at the rear to ensure the car could survive the strains of rallying. The rolling chassis was clothed in a Kevlar composite body that bore only a passing resemblance to the Montecarlo road car. The very compact machine had short overhangs and the competition version featured a prominent spoiler on the tail to provide the necessary downforce.

Also derived from a production unit was the two-liter, four-cylinder engine. As first used in the Fiat 131 Group 4, the Abarth version of the Fiat twin-cam engine featured a sixteen-valve head. Equipped with a supercharger, it was mounted longitudinally in the 037 and not transversely as in the Montecarlo. In competition trim, it produced around 280 bhp, while the de-tuned 'Stradale' road car boasted a 205 bhp version. Using the 1.4x equivalency factor for turbocharged engines, the Lancia 037 fell in the 3,000 cc category, which meant it could tip the scales at 960kg, which the purpose-built machine duly did.

Thanks to the use of proven technology and existing components, the Lancia Rally 037 went from drafting table to racing homologation, with the 200 road cars lined up for the officials’ scrutiny outside Lancia’s Borgo San Paolo factory, in just 21 months between July of 1980 and April of 1982.

On April 1st of 1982, Lancia had produced sufficient 'Stradales' for the 037 to be homologated as a Group B car.

The Lancia 037 made its debut in the World Rally Championship at the 1982 Tour De Corse, but, despite hardly breaking new ground on the technical side, the Lancias still suffered quite a few unexpected retirements due to unforeseen technical issues. Engine issues prompted one car to retire while a gearbox failure took the other car out. Reliability issues continued to dog the new Lancia and the first victory was not scored until August when Teodoro Peruggini won an Italian hill climb. During the remainder of the season, the Lancia 037 was only fielded in select events but several victories in national events in Italy and England were scored. An international win, however, still eluded to fast but fragile Lancia.

At the start of the 1983 season, most of the bugs had clearly been ironed out as the Martini Racing works team scored a one-two victory in the season opening and very prestigious Monte Carlo Rally. Walter Röhrl took the car's first World Rally Championship win, ahead of team-mate Marku Alen. That was partly because Lancia’s team manager, Cesare Fiorio, sneakily had the roads sprinkled with salt in an attempt to melt most of the ice.

In the following eleven WRC rounds, the 037 was driven to a further four victories, which was sufficient for Lancia to be crowned Manufacturers' Champion. In the Drivers' standings, Röhrl and Alen were second and third behind Audi's Hannu Mikkola, who had scored four wins in his Audi Quattro. Apart from the snow-packed Swedish Rally, where Lancia didn’t even participate because the 037s stood no chance against the Audis, competition between the two teams remained fierce throughout the season.

However, Lancia ultimately prevailed in the manufacturer’s championship with two rounds to spare, thanks to spectacular wins in Corsica and Italy but also thanks to Audi itself, which ran into technical problems in Greece and New Zealand, two rounds where it would have been at an advantage over Lancia.

The Group B rules also accommodated for an evolution version of the car once the first 200 examples were produced. For homologation purposes, only 25 of these 'Evo' cars had to be produced. Lancia launched their 037 Evo at the start of the 1984 season. The most significant difference was a slight rise in displacement to just over 2.1 litres, which still qualified the car for the 3,000 class but also boosted the power to 325 bhp. The “evolution” cars were also equipped with a larger supercharger, a more robust engine block, Kugelfisher mechanical fuel injection, and a host of other improvements needed for racing competitiveness, were then homologated in August of the same year. These were never intended for sale to the public, and all became rally cars.

While the Lancia 037 Evo was an obvious improvement over its predecessor, the competition had also been very busy. In particular Audi, who had managed to trim a considerable amount of weight off their four-wheel drive Quattro. For most of the season, the battle was once again between Audi and Lancia, with the German manufacturer dominating until the all-new Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 was launched late in the year. Eventually, Alen only managed to score a single victory for Lancia but consistent results throughout the year did ensure that the Italian team did place second in the manufacturers' championship.

Lancia soldiered on with the ageing 037 well into the 1985 season, while back in Italy the brand new Delta S4 was readied. Powered by a trick supercharged and turbocharged engine, it most importantly featured all-wheel drive, which the 037 lacked so dearly. While the 037 added no further victories to the Lancia Martini Racing tally, the Delta S4 scored a debut victory at the final round of the season, the Lombard RAC Rally. From 1986 onwards, the works team raced the Delta S4 exclusively (with the exception of the Safari rally), although privateers would continue to campaign 037s for several more years.

Although it was one of the very first Group B cars produced, the Lancia 037 very much represented the end of an era. The World Rally Championship won by the compact machine in 1983 would be the very last by a two-wheel drive car. This distinction, its racing record and the 037's sheer beauty has made a favourite to rally enthusiasts the world over. Not quite as complex as some of the later Group B cars, Lancia 037s are also still regularly used for demonstrations and historic rallies all over Europe.

The 037’s long overdue replacement finally arrived at the 1985 RAC Rally, and it was a very different animal indeed: the Delta S4 was a genuine technological tour-de-force and, on the back of its formidable performance, Lancia was back on top of the game, only losing the 1986 title battle to Peugeot by the tiniest of margin, before the Group B era was abruptly brought to an end following a series of deadly accidents.