A real debate has intrigued the rally community and historic rally enthusiasts for years.
When we think of the 1989 Sanremo Rally, the first image that comes to mind is the famous Lancia Delta with the Martini “checkered” livery on a red base, with Miki Biasion triumphant at the finish line and the new World Champion of the discipline.
Even if not immediately, the Lancia Delta with that characteristic Martini design achieved enormous success over time, even at the model car level it is certainly the most replicated livery ever. Given so much appreciation, it seems incredible that the Lancia Delta raced with that livery and with the red base color only on the occasion of a single official race, the 1989 Sanremo Rally.
In fact, everyone knows that in addition to the racing cars, which were two in total (one driven by Biasion, the other by Auriol), Lancia produced other examples of Lancia Deltas with the same particular Martini livery on a red base, and this is precisely the point on which some enthusiasts and experts in the sector are concentrating their efforts.
The question that experts are trying to answer is: how many Lancia Deltas with a red base and Martini livery were produced at the time by Lancia? And what happened to these cars?
Some have begun to hypothesize the existence of 4 cars, others 5 or 6.
An excellent contribution to this research was given by Guido Bortolani, a well-known expert in the sector, who outlined the existence of at least seven Lancia Rosse, nicknamed “the seven sisters”. For a long time this became the most accredited and complete theory.
We at Pubblimais also became passionate about the debate and tried to put our company archives in order, in which at the time the graphic creations of at least 4 official red Lancia Deltas appear. We thus tried to understand if we could provide our contribution to unravel the last mysteries surrounding these cars.
LATEST NEWS
We can officially confirm that there is some great news on this topic.
The turning point came when we had the pleasure of meeting Giorgio Delcrè, a great Lancia enthusiast and also intrigued by this topic.
To make a long story short, between us and Giorgio there was a very interesting exchange of information (chassis, license plates, years, images), many cars were thus correctly classified and what came out was extremely interesting: at the end of our research, two more red Lancia Delta cars were added to the seven sisters for a total of NINE RED LANCIA DELTAS!!
Exaggerating, we also seem to have a tenth red Lancia Delta of which, however, we have not been able to trace the license plate or chassis, therefore at the moment we cannot have absolute certainties and include it in the list.
But what can I say ... we are very satisfied even like this!
THE ARTICLE ON VIVA LANCIA
You can't keep your curiosity at bay, right? And what's the problem!? Hurry up and read the article on VIVA LANCIA for the month of July 2022 which summarizes the details of the entire research! Unfortunately, the article is in English, but we hope that an article in Italian will be published soon. Happy reading, Amici Lancisti!
PUBBLIMAIS
PS. If you have any news or important observations regarding this topic, do not hesitate to contact us, the real research never ends!
