Lancia Stratos (1973 - 1978)

The Lancia Stratos was designed around rallying rather than adapted from an ordinary road car. Its short wheelbase, mid-mounted Ferrari Dino V6 and wedge-shaped Bertone body made it highly specialised, compact and agile on loose surfaces.

Its World Rally Championship success gave it lasting motorsport credibility, but the Stratos is also important because it showed how far homologation thinking could go. It was a purpose-built rally weapon with just enough road-car production to satisfy the rules, and that purity makes it legendary.