Hands up if you remember the arcade game, Sega Rally Championship and the two cars you had the option of driving. Keep them up if you’ve owned one of those cars. Finally, keep them there if, having owned one of them in the past, you now own the other!

Ok, at this point you’re either lying, lucky or you were there when these pictures were taken and this is yours. Now if you don’t know what it is, well you’re too young to be up, its clearly past your bedtime, go brush your teeth and we’ll be along to read you a story in a minute. For the rest of you please cast your eyes over what is technically Edinburgh Cruise’s first feature car, Rich’s, Lancia Delta Integrale.

Owning an Integrale isn’t for the faint hearted, as demonstrated at the first junction we came across in our drive to our first shoot location with this rally derived monster. For starters, it’s a left hooker, as it should be, only we don’t drive on the right hand side of the road. Unless of course you’ve a photographer in the boot, but that’s a story for another day.
Also, its packing a nice round figure of 200bhp as standard. Now this amount of power can be a bit of a handful in the wrong conditions. Even when the steering wheel is on the right side, the power plant is bolted to a nice new 5 star safety rated chassis and complimented with an electronic stability system. This however is a 17 year old car, no traction control gadgets, no ESP gizmo’s, just 2 litres of engine, a big turbo and 4 wheel drive to make sure it goes, quickly. Think about it for a second, 17 years old. It could very likely get served down the pub, go clubbing, buy fags, pull a 3am beauty, get laid and wake up with a stinking hangover and an itch the following afternoon in a strange house!

Thankfully however its been kept on the straight and narrow by the last owner for 6 years in a small darkened room in Duns, resembling a garage, only seeing the light of day 4 months ago when it was fitted with a new set of rear callipers and sold. That’s not to say the car is now getting to go off the rails, far from it. With 14 years driving experience under his belt and a habit of not giving this motor too much right foot, Rich isn’t expecting to wrap the front end round a lamppost anytime soon. Nope, the task from day one of ‘grale ownership, was to refine the beast back to as original spec as possible and keep it clean. “It’s the first car I’ve ever un-modified” he chuckled.

The aftermarket alloys were binned (or more probably sold on e-bay) and replaced with a nice mint standard set of rims then wrapped in some fresh rubber. The tail spoiler was returned to its OE colour, monza red to match the rest of the bodywork and possibly the most back to the old school change we’ll see in any car for a long time, the head unit was replaced for a radio cassette player! Sometimes removing items from a car can unveil some hidden problems. Thankfully not so here. Upon whipping the nasty, but very legal, registration plates from the car, the custom sized and strangely, but cool, tinted ones remained underneath and will continue to see the light of day.

While the owner does “appreciate the car for what it is, rather than strive to improve things”, some alterations on the car will remain. The custom made stainless exhaust is something that he’s gotten used to and will stay, for now. Likewise the dump valve, Samcos, lowered uprated AP springs and Bilstien shocks. Also in the car, rather than on, is a full alcantara interior, an expensive optional extra on this model, usually reserved for the even more exclusive, I’ll give you a kidney for it mate, Evoluzione versions.

Its attention to detail that can be a handy tool when living with this car, small details like which side you got out of at the petrol station to fuel up. This helps when you come to get back in the car again. Something which apparently can be tricky and has proven to have been done wrongly on one occasion more than is ideal. We did promise not to mention that, but then we also promised not to mention this isn’t the first Italian car Rich has owned, nope he used to drive a Fiat Panda!
The Panda (not that I asked too much about it) probably didn’t have twin pot callipers to the front and 285mm discs as standard like the ‘grale and it certainly didn’t attract attention from other drivers, who recognise it to be something a little bit special, as the ‘grale does.

Lancia won 6 successive WRC’s with this model from 1987, the first year group B cars were banned from the sport, to 1992. They’re the most successful rally team to date, 11 full championship wins with 74 victories, this model giving them 46 of those, a record yet to be matched by any other manufacturer to date. With heritage like that and the rarity of the car, (How many have you seen at a cruise?) you’d think all is grand in the world of Rich’s automotive life. Well no, its not. There are at least 3 downsides to this motor.

Firstly the lack of usability. It’d be a cardinal sin to leave this parked down Tesco’s car park between the trolly bank and the old clutch burning granny, so it can’t really be “used”. Secondly, its not cheap nor popular at home. Rich had to part with his genuinely usable, much loved, grin inducing Pulsar GTi-R to fund the Lancia. Parting with a usable car for one that’s going to sit under wraps most of the time is never going to go down well with her indoors and Rich is no exception to a woman’s less than supportive role when it comes to his car passion. As much as his significant other hated the Pulsar, she didn’t even know what a Lancia was until this moved in.

Finally, well there is a clue in the previous problem here. Rich has been through more Fords than I care to list, a GTO and of course the other Sega Rally option, a Celica GT-4. However, to state the obvious, the Integrale, while it is a 2litre 4 wheel drive turbo’d maniac, well it’s not a Japanese one, more specifically, it’s not a Pulsar. Rich loves his pulsars enough to have owned 5 already and is still the South of Scotland rep for the GTi-R owners club!

Before we parted company again at the end of the shoot, he assured me that he loves the car and it’s a definite keeper. I said the P word again though (Pulsar) and there was a little glint in his eye as if he was remembering his first true love.

Who knows what the future holds for the car and its proud owner but if you fancy the car, I think I know what could be used in part exchange to temp him away from the Lancia. One word of advice though, if you end up on a petrol forecourt with it, make sure you get back in the correct side, not the right one.