Lancia signals return to international rallying

The HF badge is back too - starting with a 240hp battery-electric Ypsilon

By PH Staff / Monday, 27 May 2024 / Loading comments

Lancia hasn’t exactly been in rude health these past few decades. It managed to make selling rebadged Chryslers in Europe seem like a high watermark after it resigned itself to offering the old Ypsilon in Italy alone after 2017 - a state of affairs roughly equivalent to Mini subsisting on Clubman sales in Oxford. It was a sorry state of affairs for a brand that was founded in 1906 and, as we all know, met with so much success in rallying that it still holds more WRC manufacturer titles than any other.

Now, at last, it has some good news to share. The arrival of a new Ypsilon probably didn’t threaten to crash the servers at parent company Stellantis earlier this year - despite it being the brand’s first new car in a decade and also the standard-bearer as it relaunches in Europe - but Lancia has followed up its introduction with confirmation that a) it will build a battery-electric HF-badged hot hatch derivative, and b) it will offer the hybrid version as a front-drive rally car for those taking part in the R4 class.

On the basis that Lancia’s roll-out does not for the moment include the UK, the second announcement is probably more interesting than the first. The Lancia Ypsilon Rally 4 HF is powered by a 1.2-litre turbocharged three-cylinder motor that delivers 212hp, making it the sister car of the Rally4-prepped Peugeot 208 and Opel Corsa. It gets a five-speed manual ‘box, a mechanical limited-slip diff and looks quite spiffy in legacy-happy Lancia livery. Sadly, Stellantis has already ruled out a proper works team, so for now the firm won’t be adding to its 10 world constructor championships - although you’d imagine that any customer who wins a Rally4 title in an Ypsilon would never have to pay for a drink in Italy again.

In any case, the rally version is mostly about helping to sell production cars, and that’s where the HF comes in. No one reading this needs reminding about the significance of the lucky elephant ‘Hi-Fi’ badging, and Lancia reckons it can live up to its high-performance legacy with a 240hp all-electric version of the Ypsilon that will launch next year. Expect a lower, wider chassis (almost certainly closely related to the front-drive Abarth 600e) and a 0-62mph time of 5.8 seconds. Granted, it would have been more interesting with a fiery three-pot, but Lancia says it isn’t stopping here - there will be an HF variant of both the Gamma and the Delta, when they arrive. Who knows, by that time it might have summoned up the courage to relaunch beyond the continent...