Stratos vs Stratos

It's also a car that clearly reflects its owner's character; as a wealthy industrialist who has won, among others, the epic Carrera Panamericana rally three times, we're not messing around here. "I'm a total carbon-fibre freak," Stoschek admits. He's even made his own mountain bike out of it - with a frame that weighs just 5kg, you can lift it with one finger.

Then again, the original Stratos was pretty crazy too, a product of the Seventies when the drugs were stronger, the hair longer and anything went. Judged in this current era of automotive bloat, the old Stratos is a tiny, barely-there cartoon of a car, with a proper cockpit and a deep well of glass for a windscreen. When the FIA's officials came to inspect the 400 homologated road cars, Lancia showed them 200 finished vehicles, before whisking the delegation off for lunch. The story is that the inspectors didn't notice that it was the same 200 cars they viewed after lunch...