Vinse il Mondiale con la trazione sbagliata e 60 cavalli in meno

It won the World Championship with the wrong traction and 60 horsepower less. The Lancia Fulvia Coupé HF 1600, the legendary Fanalone, was never meant to win. Front-wheel drive in an era dominated by rear-wheel drive, unreliable brakes, a 115-horsepower V4 engine against the much more powerful Porsches and Alpines. On paper, it lost every match. Yet in 1972, Lancia took the International Championship for Makes with two races to spare, its last title before the birth of the World Rally Championship. In this video, we explain how Cesare Fiorio had to battle the company's top brass to get the Fulvia into racing, why that coupé had a chrome sight on the hood, what the real secret was to its cornering speed, and why the very man who had defended it signed his own death sentence by developing the Stratos. Today, a well-maintained example is worth around €100,000, and on modern tires, it drives like a car 30 years younger. Music: "Eyes of Glory" - Aakash Gandhi, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" - Cooper Cannell. Photographs are from archive.org and are in the public domain.