Integrale, P1800, Evo37 and GT Electric: four gorgeous, reimagined classics take on Italy

The future isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. How else do you explain the surge in popularity of what we now know as the ‘restomod’? Three semi-classic Italians and a Swedish interloper sit by a dam at the summit of a mountain, each the purveyor of potent analogue sensation.

The air is thin up here so they’re working hard, but then so are we. Want fizzy, granular steering? You’ve got it. Two Lancias, an Alfa Romeo – or is it? – and a Volvo. They’re big on mechanical rattle and hum, rather less interested in lane assist. We live in a secular world but these are cars as the good Lord surely intended.

They have credibility, too. Automobili Amos, resurrector of the Lancia Delta, is one of the prime movers in the restomod world. Main man Eugenio Amos is a race and rally driver, not to mention a serial car collector with the taste to match his financial firepower. Working with Milanese carrozzeria BorromeoDaSilva, Amos has, for want of a better description, done a Singer on the Delta using the OG Integrale as the donor. In excess of 1,000 components have been replaced, the pugnacious three door body is hand beaten from aluminium, with carbon fibre panels on the nose, bonnet and rear. It now weighs just 1,250kg, 90 fewer than before.

Photography: Lee Brimble

The car I picked up earlier in Milan is not one of the 20 Delta Futuristas Automobili Amos has delivered. It’s the firm’s original development vehicle that’s done the hard yards, and is now doing some more en route to our location. There it will meet the Cyan Racing Volvo P1800 GT, the Totem GT and another ‘make Lancia great again’, the Kimera Evo37. It’s like we’ve entered a parallel dimension, or fast forwarded through a time warp.

With some interesting results. Truthfully, the Delta wouldn’t be my first choice of ride for a 150 mile blat up an Italian motorway after not much sleep. The original came along back in 1979 and despite Amos’s evocative reimagining, the driving position and ergonomics are a defiant throwback. Plus, this particular car has surely seen better days. And yet, you immediately dial into it in a way that rarely if ever happens in a seamless modern.

The steering and clutch are battling to see which is heaviest, while the engine idles lumpily at low speeds and redefines the concept of turbo lag the rest of the time. Needless to say, I absolutely love it. Amos reckons it’s good for well north of 300bhp but doesn’t say exactly how far north. Probably because it depends what sort of mood the car’s in when it wakes up in the morning. I know how it feels.

By the time we arrive, I need a lie down and/or a stiff drink. And I’ve been teetotal for five years. Never mind that, what a place. The Gran Paradiso national park, in the southern part of the Valle d’Aosta, is where the cliffhanger conclusion of the original Italian Job was filmed. The SS460 wriggles north out of Turin and seems determined to get more breathtaking round every corner. Each of our four cars is compact enough to cope with this frantically ascending pasta loop of road. This will turn out to be a crucial attribute.

They might be similar philosophically but jumping between them reveals key differences. Following the tactile marrone Alcantara and woven mats of the Delta, the Cyan Racing Volvo is a study in Scandinavian minimalism. We’ve driven this exact car before, but in a different tune. Cyan, a successful race outfit, initially developed the P1800 in its own image. But that wasn’t true to the car’s more relaxed origin story, and didn’t chime with potential buyers. Hence this GT, now with a cut down roll cage, retuned engine and suspension, more sound deadening and comfier seats. The main dials are crisply designed, the driving position still emphatically low slung, the interior ambience businesslike and expensive.

The Kimera is tricky to get into but once you’re ensconced a joy to behold. It feels like a rally car, oddly enough – sparse, serious and a little dangerous even when static. The Totem is a superbly crafted GT. There’s lots of exposed aluminium, leather and carbon fibre, big cowled Alfa style instrument dials, and a beautiful old school radio. In its attention to detail it reminds me of a Pagani, which is a tribute to its talented creator, former car designer Riccardo Quaggio. He modelled the design from a piece of Frigo foam that cost £200.

It’s just as well resolved outside, a note perfect, largely carbon fibre reboot of a 105 series Alfa Romeo, wider of stance and meaner looking but still the sort of pretty that only Italy delivers. Quaggio is a youthful character but steely enough to have built his business from scratch. He must also have noted that Alfaholics’ deliriously good GTA-R has an order book that stretches well into the next decade.

We actually have two Totems here, one powered by a 592bhp dry sump 2.8-litre twin turbo V6, with the same gearbox used in the Ferrari 550 Maranello, the other with an 81kWh battery and e-motor good for 582bhp plus an integrated limited slip differential. We also have a problem: the owner of the petrol car will only let us passenger in it, though we can drive the electric one. Sadly, this is the wrong way round, not least because the EV’s suspension setup is best described as ‘experimental’. Nor can the rear wheels really handle 663lb ft of torque, as I discover when I leave a pair of thick liquorice lines all the way up the valley.

There’s a lot to admire here, but we can’t be sure how good the Totem is until they’ve finished it – and even then there’s the question of appropriateness. The EV is smooth and slippery of character, the ICE more charismatic even at idle. It sure sounds good with the V6 and even seems like acceptable value at around £445,000. Well, you’ll never see another one.

The weather has turned nasty as I try the Cyan Racing car on for size. I’ve driven this car before, and remember it being pretty lively out of second gear corners. But that was near Silverstone, not on the mountain passes where Michael Caine famously said, “Hang on a minute, lads, I’ve got a great idea” as he dangled over a precipice. Easy does it, for the first 10 minutes anyway. The setup work Cyan has done since has made it impressively supple and light years away from any P1800 I’ve previously driven.

Volvo made about 45,000 between 1961 and 1973, and these guys can repurpose even the shoddiest example. Aside from assuming a donor car’s identity, the only carry over parts are in the roof pillars, bonnet release mechanism, windscreen wipers and handbrake lever. So what we’re looking at is a new car, engineered by a premier racing team, infused with the spirit of a charismatic old timer. The chassis is now made of high tensile steel, the body panels carbon fibre, and there’s a roll cage inside for structural rigidity the original could only have dreamt of.

This is an exceptionally well made car, as it should be for circa £500k. The engine bay is meticulously finished, and houses Volvo’s still current 2.0-litre four cylinder engine, turbocharged to produce between 350 and 414bhp, depending on preference, and redlined at 7,700rpm. As the car weighs just 990kg, this is more than enough to keep things entertaining, even if the engine itself sounds rather flat. It uses a five speed manual gearbox sourced from Australian specialist Holinger, and there’s a limited slip diff. The box has a lovely, snickety action which manages to serve up old school vibes as long as you don’t rush it. I’m less taken with the brakes, though.

Eugenio Amos hates understeer and his Integrale is the easiest of the four cars to lob from corner to corner. It’s like a grenade, a proper party animal. Perhaps because this car has been well used already we’re less worried about treating it deferentially and it seems to soak up whatever we throw at it. There are groans and squeaks galore, thrash, clatter and comical levels of wastegate chumpff. Part of the appeal of these restomods is the level of bespokery and curation involved. On which basis, I’m not sure I’d be comfortable ragging my own Futurista quite as vigorously, but at least we know it’s up for it.

It’s a thought that’s even more present when you drive the Kimera. Kid gloves rather than driving ones are the order of the day. Much has happened since I first tried one of these a few years ago, founder and former rally driver Luca Betti having relocated the company to a magnificent villa in Piedmont. The ambition has grown to match the premises. You’ll not get much change from £700k for one of these cars, which focuses the mind when you’re attempting a three-point up a misty mountain. Maybe we should just park up and admire its shape. Is there a better view in motordom than the one across the upswept tail and rear three quarters of this thing? I think not.

The Kimera Evo37 uses a steel monocoque borrowed, like the original Group B 037, from a Beta Montecarlo, bolstered by a new tubular structure front and rear for improved rigidity. Suspension is forged double wishbones, with dual Öhlins dampers at the rear. Brembo supplies the brakes. The body panels are made of carbon fibre composite rather than Kevlar.

The engine is a 2.1-litre four cylinder that uses the block from the original with new ancillaries, made by specialist Italtecnica. Like the mid 1980s Lancia Delta S4 Group B beast, it’s turbo and supercharged, for optimum low end response and fearsome thrust at the top. Once the turbo’s spinning, the supercharger decouples to minimise parasitic losses. This also allows for a certain flexibility: choose the wildest engine control map and 550bhp is available, which bodes well given a 1,000kg kerbweight. 

If it’s a tribute act, it’s one that ticks all the right boxes. Kimera enlisted double Lancia world rally champion Miki Biasion to help with chassis development, Fiat Group motorsport general Sergio Limone gave the project his blessing, while the engine bears the imprimatur of Italian engineering legend Claudio Lombardi. He ran Lancia’s powertrain development back in the 1980s alongside team boss Cesare Fiorio, who he later followed to the Ferrari F1 team where he designed the Scuderia’s last V12 engine.

It’s electrifying to drive, in a way no electric car could ever be

Honestly, this is partly what you’re buying if you’ve shelled out for one of the 37 Kimeras that have been made (plus an additional seven Martini liveried cars each celebrating a rally the car won). The 037 was the last rear drive car to win the WRC (in 1983), making it “in many ways the archetypal Italian car, a genius car but one that had certain problems”, says Betti. The only problem I can find is that I don’t own one. Up here in the hills it’s tricky to stretch this Evo37, a customer car. But when we visit Villa Kimera a few days later, I get another go, on the long, sweeping roads around Cuneo, sunshine strafing the trees.

Even starting it is fun: twist the kill switch to ‘on’, pull the inizione toggle to prime the fuel system, then push two little buttons either side of the centre console. It doesn’t start so much as erupt into life, the engine thrashing away behind you. Engage first and check out the exposed linkage as you do so. The gearbox is the same one used by the Audi R8 and Lamborghini Gallardo, a beautiful Graziano item. The Kimera is gnarly and grumpy at first. More competition car vibes.

Get moving, though, and it soon floods your entire being with sensation, moves with precision and feels light yet exquisitely and deeply engineered. There’s a definite sense of forced induction but the rush is linear and easy to stay on top of. It dances around but stays poised and perfectly controlled, a flyweight compared with most new cars, yet capable of delivering a true haymaker. It’s electrifying to drive, in a way no electric car could ever be.

It is the most convincing here. Not just the best to drive but, crucially for a restomod, truest to its origins, taking the rallying 037 and not only reimagining it as a road car, but enhancing it. It is a clearly thought through, diligently executed and stupendously exciting car, a road going Group B tearaway for a new generation. There’s more to come from Kimera, a company that seems set on a Singer style trajectory. And as a means of reconnecting to an imagined past, nobody does it better.