Welcome to the Lancia Stratos Mod for Grand Prix Legends

The Lancia Stratos Mod for Grand Prix Legends (GPL) was released in 2010 and represents the Stratos of the year 1976, followed by the Stratos Rocks Mod Update for Grand Prix Legends (GPL) in 2015. The Lancia Stratos was one of the first homologation specials built with the World Rally Championship in mind. The car uses the "Dino" V6 engine in HF spec giving 265 bhp @7800 rpm. Because of its very short wheelbase the car is prone to oversteer but this can be used to aid cornering. Feedback of real drivers about the GPL Lancia Stratos Mod Members of the Stratos Enthusiasts Club have told the GPL mod team about the Stratos, that the mod is actually quite accurate. It may seem that the car pushes all the time, but in fact the Stratos was quite rear-end-heavy, so the way to get it to turn is to get the tail to hang out. They all used to say that the car was quite tail-end happy under hard throttle, and could get a bit squirrely under hard braking too. If you could get used to this and learn to control the instability, you could use it to point the nose in the right direction. That seems to be the technique that Sandro Munari (and others) used to use when they were winning rally championships with it. History The Lancia Stratos HF (Tipo 829) is a car from the Italian manufacturer Lancia. The HF stands for High Fidelity. It was the first vehicle designed exclusively for rallying and was extremely successful in this motor sport. Among other things, Lancia won the 1974, 1975 and 1976 World Rally Championships with the Stratos in direct succession, which at that time were only run as a constructors' championship. Lancia traditionally used the design house Pininfarina and had not used Bertone before. Bertone desired to create an opportunity for a relationship with Lancia and knew that Lancia was looking for a replacement for the ageing Fulvia for use in rally sports. Bertone decided to design an eye-catching model to show to Lancia. Bertone used the running gear of a Fulvia Coupé which belonged to one of his friends and built a running model around it. When Bertone himself appeared at the Lancia factory gates with the Stratos Zero he passed underneath the barrier, to great applause from the Lancia workers. After that Lancia and Bertone agreed to develop a new rally car based on the ideas of Bertone's designer Marcello Gandini. Gandini had already designed the Lamborghini Miura and was working on the Countach at the time. Lancia presented the Bertone-designed Lancia Stratos HF prototype at the 1971 Turin Motor Show, a year after the announcement of the Stratos Zero concept car. The prototype Stratos HF (Chassis 1240) was fluorescent red in colour and featured a distinctive crescent-shaped wrap-around windshield providing maximum forward visibility with almost no rear visibility. The prototype had three different engines in its early development life: the Lancia Fulvia engine, the Lancia Beta engine and finally, for the 1971 public launch, the mid-mounted Dino Ferrari V6 producing 190 hp (142 kW) in road trim. The use of this engine had been planned from the beginning of the project, but Enzo Ferrari was reluctant to sign off the use of this engine in a car he saw as a competitor to his own Dino V6. After the production of the Dino had ended, the "Commendatore" (a popular nickname for Enzo Ferrari) agreed to deliver the engines for the Stratos, upon which Lancia suddenly received 500 units. The Stratos was a successful rally car during the 1970s and early 1980s. It started a new era in rallying as it was the first car designed from scratch for this kind of competition. The three leading men behind the entire rallying project were Lancia team manager Cesare Fiorio, British racer/engineer Mike Parkes and factory rally driver Sandro Munari, with Bertone's Designer Marcello Gandini taking a personal interest in designing and producing the bodywork. Lancia undertook extensive testing with the Stratos and raced the car in several racing events where Group 5 prototypes were allowed during the 1972 and 1973 seasons. Production of the 500 cars required for homologation in Group 4 commenced in 1973 and the Stratos was homologated for the 1974 World Rally Championship season. The Ferrari Dino V6 engine was phased out in 1974, but 500 engines - among the last examples built - were delivered to Lancia. Production ended in 1975, when it was thought that only 492 were made (for the 1976 season, the Group 4 production requirement was reduced to 400 in 24 months). The manufacturer of the car was Bertone in Turin, with final assembly by Lancia at the Chivasso plant. Powered by the Dino 2.4 L V6 engine that was also fitted to the rallying versions, but in a lower state of tune, it resulted in a power output of 190 PS; 188 bhp (140 kW) at 7,000 rpm and 226 N m; 166 lbf ft (23 kg m) at 4,000 rpm of torque, giving the road car a 0–100 km/h (62 mph) time of 6.8 seconds, and a top speed of 232 km/h (144 mph). The car was sold as the Lancia Stratos HF Stradale. The Stratos weighed between 900 and 950 kilograms, depending on configuration. Power output was around 275 hp (205 kW) for the original 12 valve version and 320 hp (239 kW) for the 24 valve version. Beginning with the 1978 season the 24 valve heads were banned from group 4 competition by a change to the FIA rules (which would have required additional production of 24-valve cars for re- homologation). Even with this perceived power deficit the Stratos was the car to beat in competition and when it did not suffer an accident or premature transmission failure (of the latter there were many) it had great chances to win. Despite the fact that the Stratos was never intended to be a race car, there were two Group 5 racing cars built with 560 hp (418 kW), using a single KKK turbocharger. The car won the 1974, 1975 and 1976 championship titles in the hands of Sandro Munari and Björn Waldegård, and might have gone on to win more had not internal politics within the Fiat group placed rallying responsibility on the Fiat 131 Abarths. As well as victories on the 1975, 1976 and 1977 Monte Carlo Rally, all courtesy of Munari, the Stratos won the event with the private Chardonnet Team as late as 1979. Without support from Fiat, and despite new regulations that restricted engine power, the car would remain a serious competitor and proved able to beat works cars in several occasions when entered by an experienced private team with a talented driver. The last victory of the Stratos was in 1981, at the Tour de Corse Automobile, another World Rally Championship event, with a victory by longtime Stratos privateer Bernard Darniche. Partly from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia