Yahoo Autos Lancia Stratos HF Zero: The Ultimate Wedge
Reading the description of the 1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero at the Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza, you could be forgiven to think it’s little more than a preposterous footnote in automotive history. The car is compared to a “mobile ramp,” and onlookers are advised to “avoid tripping over it or stepping on it.”
In fact, the importance of the Bertone-designed Stratos Zero cannot be overstated. Unveiled in October 1970 at the Turin Motor Show, it was a counterpart of the similarly outrageous Ferrari 512S Modulo by Pininfarina. Both cars have an almost abstract, sculptural quality, but the Stratos seems more dynamic compared to the somewhat static Modulo. It’s also even lower, at just 33 inches tall.
Power came from a 1584-cc V-4 making 115 horsepower at 6200 rpm, taken straight from the production Lancia Fulvia. The rear of the car features a grille through which the mechanicals are clearly visible; the engine bay is covered by a triangular hood that opens to the right.
On each side of the car there are two small windows stacked on top of each other, and ingress and egress is facilitated by opening the large, framed windshield. The steering wheel, featuring a spherical center, can be moved upwards to make it easier for the driver to exit. The black leather seats feature a blocky, square pattern.
The Stratos Zero was not a forerunner of the famed Lancia Stratos HF rally car, but it captured Lancia top management’s interest at the Turin show-enough to get Bertone and Lancia to sit down together and create the production Stratos.
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The Stratos Zero currently wears a unique copper color, but it previously was painted silver, which perhaps even better highlights its ultra-futuristic shape. Under the title “Extrapolations,” the Swiss Automobil Revue wrote at the time: “Audacious, even seemingly abstruse ideas can have positive, barely anticipated results.” And that is certainly true of Bertone’s Stratos Zero, a concept that, more so than any other, ushered in the era of angular, wedge-shaped cars that characterized the 1970s and ‘80s, and served as its premature culmination.
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