25 to life: 1991 Lancia Delta Integrale

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America is known as “Land of the free and home of the brave” or some such.  However, it the realm of vehicles, you wouldn’t think it, with all the laws around crash safety, emissions and such, denying us many interesting cars from Europe and Japan.  However, after aging a car 25 years, those laws don’t apply, and your friendly protective bureaucrat will wave you thru when you import formerly forbidden fruit like this Lancia.  Find this 1991 Lancia Delta Integrale for sale in Mercer island, WA for $16,750 via craigslist.

The Lancia Delta was a FWD Italian econobox that served as the basis for Lancia’s turbo-supercharged killer B rally weapon, the Delta S4.  After Group B was banned in 1986, Lancia homologated a Group A version of the Delta with a turbo engine and AWD.  Since Group A required production of 5,000 units to be sold to the public, the result was the Lancia Delta HF.  HF stood for HiFi, which was the name of the unofficial Lancia rally team prior to its takeover by Lanica as the works team.  The story is they picked HiFi as it sounded cool.  Anyway, the Delta HF evolved into the HF Integrale 8v and then as you see here, the HF Integrale 16v.  Powered by a 2 liter turbo 4 with a 16v head, it produced an official 200hp, which was the HP limit of Group A.  Access to it is a little tight, as Edd China can testify.

A recent import from Japan, the Integrale has 90,000 km or about 56,000 miles according to Alexa.  Nice thing is that there never was a RHD version, so even though it is a Japan market car, you won’t be stuck delivering mail with it.  The car looks to be in ok condition, the interior is a little scruffy (pitch the add-on cup holder please) and there are a couple of shots of rust bubbles, peeling clear coat and dings.  Kudos to the seller for posting 24 photos in their ad.

One thing this car is missing is US title.  The seller is willing to license it in Washington for an additional 400 clams, but you might want to inquire if all the customs and other importation paperwork is up to snuff.

See a better way to own a rally legend? email us here: tips@dailyturismo.com

Gianni is Daily Turismo’s Pacific Northwest correspondent. He’s been spectating at rallies since a teen and saw the works Lancia Deltas at the Olympus Rally in the 1980’s.