Lancia Stratos news - New Stratos: as approved by Big Luca - 2010

Even if you're the kind of man who can build your own, superb one-off supercar, you really don't want to get on the wrong side of Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo.

Especially if you're the man who's just built a new one-off Lancia Stratos... based on the underpinnings of a Ferrari F430. That's the sort of ‘homage' that could, in theory, rub Luca up the wrong way. You don't want to rub Luca up the wrong way.

See more pics of the new Stratos and Lancia's original 1970s icon

No surprise, then, that Michael Stoschek - the German businessman behind the New Stratos - invited Monty (as absolutely no one calls him on pain of bad things) for a few laps of Fiorano in the prototype ‘Lancia'.

The verdict? A big thumbs-up from the Ferrari big cheese. Click the pointy-arrow-button to see di Montezemolo giving the Stratos some delicious-sounding death around Ferrari's test track before scrawling graffiti over the engine bay and then, perhaps wisely, heaping praise on Stoschek's creation.

Once you've done that, answer us these two questions. First, is di Montezemolo officially the most Italian man in the history of the world?

Second, on a scale of one to ‘screaming Justin Bieber fangirl', how excited are you about the Stratos? Yeah, us too...