The History of the Lancia Delta S4 - The Car That Ended Group B 

When a driver says the car is too fast, you better believe it. Even though I love things like this, there are always limits to anything.

Rallying is dangerous even with a basic car, you're going at full blast on regular roads, not circuits. I'm amazed that there are relatively few death, to be honest.

"So how much boost and HP do you want?" Lancia: Yes.

"How and why the S4 left the road is still a mystery." Maybe it had something to do with going 100+ mph around a turn on the side of a cliff? These guys were insane!

800hp on a car that weigh little more than a ton are just EPIC.. thanks for the video.informative.

RiP Toivonen and Cresto

Correction* Lancia created a rally car like no other before, or after... this is the greatest rally car this earth will see.

Henri's complaint about car's too high performance foreshadowed his tragic death.

My father, one day, came back home after another long day in engine test room. He told me "these guys are crazy, they want to stick an F1 engine on a light chariot". They had just reached 1500HP and were aiming at 1HP x cm^3. S4 engine was 1750cc.

This has to be the most well made video from a channel with less than 1000 subs I've ever seen.

That Lancia was a BEAST... Beautiful, powerful and extremely fast. Unfortunately Henri Toivonen died in a S4 but they both have become a LEGEND ...

Excellent video. Most amazing, it was only a few years until Group A cars with barely 300 hp were faster. Power is nice, but suspension, brakes and chassis are the important parts.

I met fortunately Juha Kankkunen a few years ago at a Bentley gig, I asked about the 1986 F1 Estoril qualifying time 'story' and he confirmed its true, he was there. It was a tarmac spec S4 running about 550bhp not 800 as claimed here

I've seen many videos on the Group B era but this is the best. The attention to detail is epic. Even your brief history of rallying is awesome. A credit to you. On the cars themselves - they were psychotic...but breathtaking.

Definitely a legendary car! Great video!!

*Funny fact:* Lancia had to make 400 road homologated cars to participate to group B with the 037. Lancia only made 200 cars and parked them in one big private parking lot. When rally officials came to check the number of cars, they saw the 200 cars and then they went to the restaurant to eat dragged by Lancia's workers. Meanwhile they were eating 200 people from Lancia's staff drove the cars to another parking lot. After lunch officials went to check the "other" 200 cars HAHAHAHAH

Personally the S4 was the most insane group B car of all time,as a kid I was obsessed with them I've still got the VHS cassette tapes 2-3-and the odd 4 hour one with group B footage from that era with the likes of the RAC, Corsica,Manx, ect,,, I keep saying I'll get them put on to a DVD but i never get around to it (plus I'm old school) and computers and converting VHS is not my department I'm a what you'd call a hammer+nail's guy- I'll get them done one day, There is one bit of footage I had until (excuse my vocabulary) > some bastard recorded over it with a comedy show here in the UK called "dad's army" it was the famous (Dear God) footage of Ari and terry in the manta 400 in the Manx only there was something special that went with it (it had background music to the video so you could still see and hear all the action and the sound of the manta) BUT in the background was the music and the music was a song by a group called "Van Halen" it was called JUMP - and the mixture of those two was something special that I'd love to hear again (I recorded it off a TV program called Grand Stand I've been searching the Internet for years to try and find it but without any success, even my elder brother still talks about it (the footage+background music) "JUMP" that was recorded over on that VHS tape (I have an idea who it was but to this day he's adamant it was in him ) and that person was my dad, OK yes it was only a recording of a group B manta flat out but to me its the combination of the two "footage and music" that still sticks in my memory and I can't get rid of it the reason > because I'd love someone to recreate it a put it on RU-vid because I certainly don't have the knowledge of how to do it as I doubt it will ever be found because to me it was a " one off combination of both music and Motorsport especially that of something that is only memories, I've still got a present my mother got me for Christmas back in the days of group B and she said years later it had cost her TWO WEEKS BLOODY WAGE'S she said ! to get that thing built and it's still work's to this day although collecting dust it's a TAMIYA RC 1/10th scale model of the 037 I'll never part with it because of the sentimental reason as my parents worked all their lives to give us (4) what they could afford and to receive a £200 1/10 th radio control car for a Christmas present in the 1980's was something special because we wasn't wealthy my dad was a joiner and my mum was a nurse at a Liverpool hospital. Anyway that's my little COVID lockdown story of memory lane and my fascination of group B especially that S4 although the Audi quattro sport was something special - so if anyone knows how to put that old long lost footage together and put it on RU-vid then I'd love to hear see and hear it. Stay safe everyone and goodbye. As my wife is snoring away behind me (hence the reason I'm still awake a 02.27am. Oh! Great video keep them coming.

Top quality, engaging and informative. Fantastic!

This is great content! I’m surprised by the low views and subscriber count. This is top notch stuff!

Great video, beautiful animations, very nicely done. I look forward to see more of your upcoming episodes.

That quote from Henry toivonen is chilling.

It's clear that your channel is gonna grow in the car community, the animation is nice (reminds me of Mustard), keep it up👍

What a great history! Thanks for sharing!

Holy moly! For such a small channel, this quality is amazing! I can't believe you only have under 1000 subs, I believe you'll get to 10k in no time if you keep this up!

I have a lot of books about famous makes of rally cars. Problem is that Lancia does not seem to do any such book, so having documentaries like this are so refreshing.Thank you.

AMAZING JOB with this video keep up the good work 👏 👍 🙌 Lovely channel!!

More content please!!! Your videos are great just lots of time in between videos. Hopefully RU-vid will start paying you so you can focus on making these great videos

Superb video, thanks. 🍺

fantastic video, perfect!

Wow this content is amazing dude! definitely subscribing!

Bro, found one of your vids randomly and thought, yah its 250k channel, nope. You're criminally underrated

And i think one of the most beautiful cars ever made those Lancias. Puegeot 205 t16 video next please. Great video. Cheers.

Awesome video dude! You definitely gained a new subscriber.

Awesome video! Cant believe I only found this one now!

I grew up going to the races in the rally Catalunya-Costa Brava and saw the 037, the S4, Audi Quattro, the RS200, the MG Metro 6R4, etc...the Spanish newspapers were indeed talking about the Lancia S4 having close to 600hp...I can still remember the smell of the compressed gasses after the cars flew by...the noise, the speed, the smell....it would send chills through your body...awesome times!!!

What a nice video with a nice storytelling

I once had a discussion about turbocharging and supercharging where I used to work as one of the subsidiary companies was a turbo builders and recon. I was casually talking about supercharging my car which already had a turbo when someone said "you can't turbo and supercharge a car. It's either one or the other." He soon shut up when I countered with "ok tell that to Lancia with their Delta S4. That was both supercharged and turbocharged."

Dude... your channel’s awesome! It’s like mustard, but with cars.

Great video, i was lucky to see this group B cars in 1000 lakes rally for my own eyes.

I gotta say I like how you balance the showing of pictures and film. Its just more entertaining to see pictures of parts of the car and drivers, and then see film of the two in action.... 3 if you include the codriver... because rally

This is awesome! You are like the automotive mustard

This is like from mustards channel (talks about planes) but instead talks abouts cars. And its great

The loss of Henri was as significant as the loss of Jim Clark. Both drivers were considered to be at the pinnacle of their motoring path and the thought was if it could happen to these guys no driver is safe. Quite rightly major changes were made to rallying and single - seater racing albeit far too late. I feel blessed to have been able to see there careers develop. RIP

New to channel,,great stuff

Very fortunate to have been given a ride in the Roncaglia privateer S4 driven by Paolo Alessandrini at Olympus. My God! On gravel it did 0-60 on 2,5 seconds. Later at a rally shop Ruote In Pista in Torino, I got to fiddle with an E2 037 and S4. Of note is that there were a pair of Sparco seats on a shelf with "Toivonnen" on one, and "Cresto" on the other. IMHO the S4 was the greatest rally car ever made. 037 was the prettiest. I purchsed an ex-Rorhl 131 Abarth in 1988, with the intention to restore and campaign it in the US. Sadly, I had to sell her. Wish I didn't. The S4 was for sale Lit 40,000,000. Should have bought that car back then. Had 2 spare engines, Torson diffs, wheels, etc. Also got a peek at the Triflux engined evolution Delta for the proposed Group S, that never happened. Carbon fibre brakes in 1989!

I'm young(ish lmao compared to the rest of the rally community) and don't know much of the history but this video and Toivonen's statement about how their brains can't keep up is something I can kind of understand playing rally games with wheels. No series is anything like group b you're in some ridiculous rocket doing 110mph in the dark around corners people do at like 30 normally and still shit themselves. People are wild lol nothing but respect for these legends.

Jeez. Id love to give the delta a good blat. Awesome vid 👌

Incredibly well put together video! You deserve WAY more subs :)

Sick vid

@Garage Dreams amazing video and animation quality, really impressed. would love to see a vid covering the Metro 6R4 personally, another Group B Legend even if it came along a bit late.

Great content, well done! What are you using for the 3D modeling? Or is that a physical model sitting on the table..?

How does a channel with this level of production value have only 900 subs

Do more rally cars! like peugeot 205, the lancia stratos! Those are pretty iconic

NICE ONE

Toivonen crash reason was the gas pedal was stuck in the floor because metal was so thin. Thats why there is no braking mark. It was happen before with gas and clutch pedal with test driver.

I feel mustard vibes on your video.. Awesome! 👌

Those Lancia’s are amazing

Nice video! Maybe you should make a video about the Porsche 959/961/959 Dakar

That S4 prototype looked like it would've been right at home in Mad Max.

INCREDIBLE MACHINE!!

The way you make the videos is just amazing, you just earned a new subscriber keep it up and i want a Topic about the Toyota GT-One or Mercedes Benz CLK GTR if possible

Really great video! I subscribed! May I ask, what software are you using to edit your video? Thanks!

It never ceases to amaze me that whenever we talk about Gr. B of rallying, the Audi Quattro is always taken as an icon, which conceptually was a Gr. A (it was not much more than an Audi 80 Coupé with a turbo engine and four-wheel drive) for Much that they put ailerons and tried to compensate for a very uneven weight distribution by putting the radiators at the rear. The truth is that already in season 86 it was already an obsolete car no matter how much the skillful hands of Walter Röhrl tried to compensate. The merit of innovating with the first all-wheel drive vehicle caused them many reliability problems, having already been in competition for 3 seasons. Peugeot and then Lancia did not have so many problems with their first all-wheel drive models. Also say that the Regulation of Gr. B was inspired by three very innovative models: Lancia Stratos and its mid-engine, the Renault 5 Turbo and its mid-engine also put into a small utility vehicle (a large marketing operation in which Peugeot later would inspire) which gave them both astonishing agility and the Audi Quattro with its all-wheel drive but lacked that agility. All three were running under the rules of the previous Gr. 4.

Looked this up thanks to this car being amazing in Forza Horizon 4. Class B, A, and S1 it is a monster on the dirt or cross country.

the best rally team!!!

I already watch Mustard so I'm familiar with the style of the video, I love it. Keep up the good work.

I would like to see a video about the Porsche 908. Or a video about the evolution of Porsche's 904, 6, and 908.....but leave out the 917....we've heard enough about that thing!

Nice video man! Now you ask the cars I d'like to see (and have) Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale 1957 Ferrari Testarossa 250 Jaguar XJ13 Shelby Daytona Porsche Porsche Flat 16 Spyder - (917 -16 cylinder) C2 Corvette Grand Sport Peugeot 905 evo SLR Mclaren

"Kay Gee" Okay man, you're the first person I have ever heard in my entire life saying "Kaygee" to kg

I'm more a fan of the Lancia Rally 037, but Ryu and Ken am I right? In the end both are masterpieces.

Possible to do a Series on how Toyota dominated the Safari rally:-) brilliant work thanks👍

Everything this guy says is remarkable. The car is unbelievable.

Hey, Luigi! That skid plate is just gonna slow us down! Get rid of it! 🤕😵☠💀

Group b cars were designed with one purpose: get from a to b as fast as possible. Everything else was second priority, including human life.

The beast !

Deadly but beautiful What was that The golden group B of speed and dirt

nice video...add cutaway drawing

Can you please post/make a video about the Opel Manta ? 🙏

u should make more videos more often

you need 1000 subs

Nice to hear a farmiliar nz accent !

Good mustard inspired video

Game Over Yeah!

Are you a kiwi? Great content mate!

Insane car

I want that model of the Delta.

When the brain can’t keep up at the insane brutal power and acceleration. If Ferrari and Lamborghini are what they’re nowadays needs to thanks Lancia squadra corse team for the innovative technology and development.. the Blue “scudetto” will be alway in my heart. R.I.P. Champs!

Literally. Because it was simply too much. 600 bhp, short wheelbase, lightweight. An inhuman monster.

8:22 what happened was henri Toivonen and his co driver Sergio cresto brought their lancia towards the flat out approach to the tightening left hander and they didn’t even make it they were too fast and that sent the lancia off the road erupt to flames and killing henri Toivonen and Sergio cresto

Who would have thought that going 0-60 in under 3 seconds on gravel could be dangerous

I drive the lancia 037 (ralleye) in GTA 5 online. It's a beast.

Lancia is not "one of the greatest". They ARE the greatest ever. Forza Lancia, true Italian Supercar

Love the computer animation.

The Quattro Sport is pretty cool too tho!!

I still love old Lancias, having a unique relatio-wait, is that a Delta model kit!? Imnotjealousatallhowdareyou!?!?

So, Lancia didn't win the '86 constructor's and driver's championship because of pressure from Jean Todt to annul the results for Rally SanRemo. What a surprise!

The integrale had no relationship with the S4 other than the team that ran it.

woaltr rowl, absolute legend

you could speak in the video about what haopemd with the cars like using them at rallycross

Should have mentioned the placement of the fuel tanks , next to the driver, which may have contributed to the explosion of Henri's car and little chance of surviving the accident