IXO 1:18 1975 Lancia Stratos HF: 1975 San Remo Rally, S.Munari/M.Mannucci

The Lancia Stratos HF (Tipo 829), widely and more known simply as Lancia Stratos, is a sports car and rally car made by Italian car manufacturer Lancia. The HF stands for High Fidelity. It was a very successful rally car, winning the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976; and race car winning 1974 Targa Florio, five times the Tour de France Automobile and three editions of Giro d'Italia automobilistico.

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 aging 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.

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. A dedicated calculations engineer from Lancia was tasked with performing calculations on many of the chassis, steering, suspension and engine components

Sandro Munari was born in Cavarzere, in the Veneto region. He began rallying in 1965 and won the Italian Rally Championship in 1967 and 1969, adding the European Rally Championship title in 1973. In 1972 he won the Targa Florio sports car endurance race, partnering Arturo Merzario in a works Ferrari 312PB. Also in 1972 Munari claimed his first major rally victory, winning the Monte Carlo Rally in a works Lancia Fulvia.

Munari was to become strongly associated with another of Lancia's rally icons – the Lancia Stratos HF. The partnership between the Italian car and the driver scooped a further Monte Carlo Rally hat-trick in the mid-1970s, among a total of seven World Rally Championship victories. Munari also won the 1977 FIA Cup for Rally Drivers title. Later in his career he competed with a Fiat 131 Abarth, finishing third at the 1978 Tour de Corse and sixth at the 1980 Rallye Côte d'Ivoire. His last WRC appearances were at the Safari Rally, which he contested from 1981 to 1984, but retired each time.