A year after we first heard of the possibility of the Lancia Stratos being resurrected, even the slightest bit of development news still set our tongues wagging at the CAR office. Perhaps the least positive of all the updates is the most recent, in which it seems the Stratos pipeline is being plugged by one of Lancia’s stablemates…
One of the obstacles in the way of the Stratos’s production is the lack of permission from Ferrari. According to the Stratos development team, coachbuilder Pininfarina has promised that it won’t build more than a handful without the consent of Ferrari. Ferrari in turn will not consent to the planned limited production run if Pininfarina or any other Ferrari-dependent firms are involved in the production process.
It’s not all about the Fiat S.P.A subsidiary hierarchy, either – Ferrari can throw it’s toys out of the cot because the Stratos will use modified and shortened underpinnings of a F430…
This must be a sour taste to swallow for chief Stratos backers Michael and Maximilan Stoschek, but there exists a glimmer of hope in the following statement:
“Given this situation, the creation of additional vehicles seems possible only via companies that are not dependent on Ferrari. Appropriate contacts are being made at this time.”