I recently posted my little review on Lancisti.com and thought I'd post it hear for the benefit those Lancisti that are hanging out on the Alfa BB.
RE:The book "Lancia 037, The development & rally history of a World Champion"
I just finished reading this wonderful book about a world beating Lancia. Peter Collins, the author, did a fabulous job in my opinion. The in depth research that went into this book is nothing short of astounding and really displays the passion Peter has for the 037 and Italian cars in general.
From the book I learned about the important Group B rule changes that FISA (now the FIA) made back in the early 80's for WRC events. The result of these changes created the environment to allow a manufacturer to race "super and exotic" rally cars as long as they produced 200 examples for resale (homologation requirements).
The book goes into in a study of the 037 development team centered at the old Abarth works facilities of Corso Marche in Northern Torino. The main personalities behind the car, like Ing. Sergio Limone, Giorgio Pianta and team manager Cesare Fiorio are interviewed. What really struck me is how they all worked diligently under the FIAT Group into making the Lancia 037 a World Champion. A truly fascinating story of a
team that put it's heart and soul into over coming the all technical challenges in producing the "little racer."
The main European and World Rally race events the 037 participated in are discussed along with the famous rally drivers like Walter Rohrl, Markku Alen, Miki Biason, Adartico Vudafieri, Jean-Claude Andruet, Andrea Zanussi, Henri Toivonen, Attilio Bettega, Antonella Mandelli and Tiziana Borhi... in no particular order, the list goes on and on and I know that I did not mention some, especially the co-drivers.
Spectacular color photographs with captions and technical drawings abound throughout this book. A nice table is presented in Appendix I showing the 037 records in competition. There is even a nice section on owning & driving 037s and a lot of discussion throughout the book about the 037 Stradale (I can only dream).
I'll end my mini review here with a few quotes from the forward by Walter Rohrl. Hopefully these will wet your appetite for this excellent read:
“When I first saw the car I thought what a “lovely looking car” before I even sat in one.”
“In particular it had a fantastic gearbox that could be used without the clutch”
"At the end [of the 5 km test ride] the Audi engineer got out and said “now I know why you beat us!”"
Available from
Veloce Publishing or most any major book outlet. Published by Veloce Publishing, 2008. I purchased my copy from the used book network of Amazon.com.
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