Greatest Racecar? Anatoly Arutunoff’s Lancia Stratos

There have been so many great cars in my life and they have all been such fun. The wildest racecar I ever drove was a three-liter Abarth prototype that had hillclimb gearing in it. That car would do 138 mph at 8,000 rpm in fifth, so it got there in a hurry. Eventually, it needed to be overhauled, so I sold it…in pieces. I mean, you’re in a serious car, in that car. The two-liter SP that we raced at Sebring and Daytona was also a lovely car, and the Lancia Stratos has to be considered. The Stratos was a marvelous car to race. No fun on the street. I bought it as a street car, and then we modified it. Found out it was full of Fiat recall parts. The throttle cable, the door latches, the master cylinders would last about half an hour in racing conditions before they went away. My co-driver had been a Fiat parts and service guy and he told us these things were all recalls. We took delivery in ’76, Lancia didn’t want to sell us one because they were afraid that we would drive it on the street and they wouldn’t be able to sell Fiats in America, which would have been better for everybody concerned! When they first came out, I think it could have taken the Under 2.5-liter category in IMSA but, by the time we got it and started running it in ’77, the Porsches and others were so well developed. We had to get all our help from Checquered Flag in England anyway, because Lancia didn’t want to help us at all. Of course, we thought, “Gee, it’s a Dino engine, right?” Well, yeah it was, except for some reason—maybe just to be different—the cams were different, the carburetors were different and the intake manifold was different. Fundamentally, it was a Dino engine but the pistons were different. I’m not sure about the rods, but for whatever reason it had five horsepower less than a Dino. So I guess maybe they were going for torque or something. Eventually, we had BMW rear hubs and brakes and BMW brakes all around. When it was running right, it was a terrific car.