Teamslot lancia Stratos

Review by Phil Insull.

Lancia have not won a world championship rally for over a decade, and yet they are the most successful make in the sports history with 74 wins over Fords current tally of 46, and Peugeots 45. They have an amazing 10 manufacturers titles from the series inception in 1974 and the basis of all this success starts with a concept design by Bertone at the Turin show in 1970. Back then Lancia was winning major rallies (pre-WRC) with the pretty little Fulvia coupe, Bertone took this car & basically turned it round with the engine behind the driver for his concept. Lancia team boss Cesare Fiorio saw the car and started to think how a similar layout could be a major force in rallying. He “borrowed” two Ferrari 246 Dino’s from Ferrari and took them to the Col de Turini where his drivers set some competitive times, using FIAT group influence Cesare obtained a supply of the Ferrari V6 engines from the Dino for his new car. He then employed racing designer Gian Paulo Dallara to pen a mid engine two seat car and the Stratos was born at the Turin show in 1971. It took until 1974 for the Stratos to become homologated, but once it was it helped Lancia secure its first World title for makes in 1974 with three wins, and then dominated rallying by scooping the title again in 1975 and 1976. During this time the management team of Mike Parkes and Dani Audetto developed the cars with 4 valve cylinder heads to pump out a massive 330 b.h.p. and using this version the brilliant but temperamental Italian driver Sandro Munari became the first winner of the FIA drivers cup (The pre-runner of the World drivers championship) in 1977, and won his third successive Monte Carlo rally with the Stratos into the bargain.

Dropped by FIAT group in favour of its more “sellable” Miafiori 131 model the Stratos soldiered on in private hands with Bernard Darniche it’s most successful exponent winning the 1979 Monte Carlo, and scoring the last win at top level in the 1981 Tour de Corse, some 10 years after the Stratos was first introduced. Other drivers to score wins with the car include Anduret, Waldegard, and Marku Alen, who used the car for a one off drive (and won!) on his way to the 1978 driver cup. (He used the Fiat 131 for the rest of 1978). Futuristic looking the car still looks great today, and would sell like hot cakes if Lancia re-introduced it. In Cyprus last year for the rally I saw a road version parked by a stage start with a group of current WRC stars ogling it!

Team slot have started producing some very attractive plastic cars, along with their resin bodied products, and news of a new Stratos was mentioned at Nuremberg in 2003. Like it real life counterpart the first production car was ready one year later and is simply stunning looking. Now the Stratos has been done before by SCX, and jazzed up for the Mitcos version it looked o.k. but the Team Slot one knocks it into a cocked hat. First Team Slot have got the overall shape, dimensions and most importantly curves right on their version. Narrower at the front, wider at the rear with curvy tyre hugging extended wheel arches, over beautiful and accurate five “leaf spoke” yellow wheels. The first issue is of the 1977 Monte winning car of Munari / Maiga with the Alitalia livery of green and red over white extremely well presented. Nice features include a three part front grille, auxiliary spotlight covers, popped up headlights, roof air scoop, aerial, and wrap over roof spoiler this is one magic looking model of a magic looking rally car. By comparison SCX’s early effort looks like a malformed blob, I can’t emphasise how much Team Slots Stratos looks spot on to the real life car.

Ok, so it looks fantastic but what does it run like on the track? I took it to the Thursday open nights at Wolverhampton to find out. Running gear consists of reasonably soft low profile tyres on those fabulous looking plastic moulded wheels, axles standard steel with a plastic contrate, and brass bearings front track 56mm, rear track 63mm and a 67mm wheel base. The guide is the spring-loaded Team Slot long tail variety, two small circular magnets between the motor and rear axle, and a meaty looking TS7 Titan motor that looks like a re-badge Reprotech. (Appropriate given the real cars motor was a re-badge Ferrari one). Nose to tail the car is around 115mm long and sits around 40mm tall.

Off we go then on the Ninco main track, and first noticeable thing is the power of that motor, bags of punch but very on or off, I switched from my normal 45ohm throttle to a 60ohm to give a bit more control, and proceeded to lap with against one of the new Ninco Subaru’s with the roller bearings and stonking motor. (Both had magnets still in place). In short the Stratos was like lightning once I’d got used to the on off motor response. Lap times worked down to around 11 seconds while the Subaru struggled to get into the 13’s. Bear in mind that the hot shot magnetised touring cars only manage 10-11 seconds round here. Given the motor characteristics I decided not to remove the magnets as I felt this would result in a major off, but I did try the Stratos on one of the small routed copper tape tracks with a 75ohm Ninco throttle and she ran quite well with just a couple of minor offs, which produced no damage.

In conclusion this is a fabulous slot version of a car that in many ways revolutionised rallying in that it was penned as a rally car rather than being derived from a road car, it looks so good it is hard to see any room for improvement. The interior is a bit bland and black but sadly it is on the real car too, and to be frank the exterior is so exquisite whose going to look inside. Not sure if it’s a racer without the magnets, but the engine could be swapped for something a little more subtle for non-magnet use. If you have never considered Team Slot cars before, then take a look at the Stratos because if you do you will surely want one. Every adult at Wolverhampton on Thursday admired this car, and I’d be surprised if most of them haven’t got one for next week!