New Stratos to debut at Geneva next Month, journos and nerds rejoice
That amazing one-off modern Lancia Stratos tribute from 2010 is finally getting a limited production run thanks to an ex-Pininfarina employee.
Way way back in 2010, the automotive press got itself all in a tizzy because a very wealthy German man commissioned from Pininfarina a one-off modern take on Lancia's mighty and very, very sexy Stratos. The famed Italian design house took a perfectly good Ferrari F430, lopped a bunch of bits off of it, shortened the chassis and gingerly placed its homage to Marcello Gandini's excellent work atop it.
It was gorgeous, and it had 550 horsepower, and the world wanted more of them but, alas, it wasn't meant to be. Famously fractious Ferrari shut the project down and to be sure that its edict would be obeyed, it forbade its suppliers from taking part in the project independently, and just like that, the project was dead, until now.
Yes, the New Stratos will lift an inside wheel when driven at appropriate anger levels. *hyperventilating*
The head engineer of the original 2010 project, Mr. Paolo Garella, figured that he'd branch out on his own and start his own boutique supercar manufacturing company that would execute production for other designers like Jim Glickenhaus, Apollo, and Devel. The company he started is called Manifattura Automobili Torino, and now the company is producing a run of 25 new Stratoses, just don't call them Lancias.
"To have the opportunity to build the New Stratos is a great honor and a recognition of the capabilities that MAT has acquired over the last few years," said Paolo Garella, head of Manifattura Automobili Torino. "From its foundation in 2014, MAT has been involved in four different projects for the design and development of supercars. Now with the New Stratos we will deliver an extremely refined supercar that can be used every day but also deliver excitement and exhilarating fun on twisty roads."
According to the spec sheet released by Manifattura Automobili Torino, the new Stratos will have a 540 hp V8 and weigh just 2,749 lbs dry. According to MAT, the 0-62 run will take just 3.3 seconds and the car's top speed should sit somewhere north of 170 miles per hour. Weight distribution will sit at 44/56 and the driving experience promises to be all kinds of silly.
The design is reasonably faithful to that of the original Stratos and even features the weird helmet-sized door pockets of the original. The car will make its debut at this year's Geneva Motor Show and will be available in three trims: Safari (YES.), a track-oriented GT model and a standard road car variant.
We don't know how much these things are going to cost, but our intuition tells us that it is going to be A LOT. We'll make sure Andrew Krok sits in one at Geneva and does all the appropriate vroom vroom noises for you all.