How Lancia pulled off its famous Monte Carlo giantkilling

Lancia’s surprise victory to kick off the 1983 World Rally Championship season on the Monte Carlo Rally, and in doing so defeat the all-conquering four-wheel-drive Audi Quattro, has gone down in rallying folklore and deserves a place among the great motorsport giant-killing stories.

It was a win that kicked off a fierce yet fascinating rivalry with Audi that ultimately went the way of the plucky Italian marque. To this day, Lancia’s rear-wheel-drive 037 rocket remains the last two-wheel-drive car to win the manufacturers’ crown.

“I think the biggest surprise was for us to win the Monte Carlo event,” recounts Cesare Fiorio, Lancia’s team principal of the time. “It was the first event of the year and normally it was a rally that we should have lost as there was snow, but we managed to take it away somehow. That is when we knew we were competitive.”

Heading into 1983, the effects of a rule change from four years earlier, to admit four-wheel-drive vehicles in the Group B WRC regulations, was fully felt. The rally world was still in shock, with Opel, Toyota, Nissan and Lancia left dumbfounded by the dominance of Audi’s new fire-breathing monster. Hannu Mikkola and Michele Mouton had accumulated five wins in 1982 as the Ingolstadt marque wrapped up the coveted manufacturers’ title, while Opel’s Walter Rohrl pipped Mouton to the drivers’ crown.

“We had a long history of winning cars before with the Fulvia, the Stratos, and we were very competitive at that time, but all of a sudden the four-wheel-driven Audi arrived,” continues Fiorio. “It was the only four-wheel-driven car in the championship and they were winning everything. We didn’t have the technology of four-wheel drive to compete against them. So we thought, ‘What are we going to do?’”

Lancia’s response was to create the lightweight (975kg), mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive 037. It was a game changer. A sleek body fitted over a tubular chassis was combined with a supercharged four-cylinder engine capable of producing a little over 300bhp. The car would be a rocket on Tarmac, but perhaps not a match for the Audi on the loose surfaces.

Its debut had come at the back end of 1982, without much fanfare, but the refined version that debuted in 1983 was a different matter. However, heading into Monte Carlo, where ice and snow was expected, Audi appeared to be in pole position to dominate.

Few expected anything other than Audi domination on the Monte in 1983, but the four-wheel drive cars were to be humbled by Lancia

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“Normally in Monte Carlo there is a lot of snow so the four-wheel-drive car had the big advantage,” explains Fiorio. “But that year only on one stage there was some snow. We thought we had a better chance and we realised we were very competitive; it was a very good car.”

Lancia also had a strong driver line-up. It had persuaded reigning champion Rohrl to leave Opel and join marque superstar Markku Alen, although Rohrl had no interest in defending his title and only wanted to contest certain events to his preference. Fortunately for Lancia, its Monte Carlo hopes were raised by unseasonably warm temperatures, meaning the customary snow and ice was limited to a smattering on sections of the famous Alpine ribbons of asphalt. To make the conditions even more favourable, Lancia took matters into its own hands thanks to the ingenuity of its flamboyant leader Fiorio – and some salt.

“I must say I knew there was a stage with a lot of snow on, so I went to the French police and I didn’t wear my Lancia clothing and I was like a tourist,” he recalls. “I said that I nearly got killed on this road because the ice is absolutely dangerous, so I asked if they could clear this road because it was not possible to pass. They said they would take care of this and they did. But after that we did buy some salt to help clear the ice, but only on one stage.”

"It was a big moment because Audi was dominating the scene with the four-wheel-drive car and all the other manufacturers didn’t really have a chance" Cesare Fiorio

This wasn’t to be the only Lancia stunt. While snow and ice was at a premium, it was Audi that starred on the opening day. Stig Blomqvist opened up a 10s lead over Opel’s Guy Frequelin, while Rohrl was a further six seconds back in the lead 037.

“It hasn’t been the conditions that this car needs, without the snow and ice, but now we can see this car works on Tarmac,” said a confident Blomqvist at the time.

Lancia would strike back on the second day, when the devastating performance of the 037 on dry asphalt was plain for all to see. The Quattros of Blomqvist, Mikkola and Mouton were outclassed by the mosquito-like 037s that ate up the twisty roads. Rohrl claimed nine of the day’s 14 stages as Lancia stunned Audi with its pace. The Martini-liveried 037s filled the top two spots, with Alen 3m26s behind Rohrl, while the nearest Audi, driven by Blomqvist, was a staggering 8m22s adrift in third.

Alen kept up Lancia's pressure by tracking leader Rohrl

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While the conditions had been favourable for Lancia, it was also helped by another party trick that caught its rivals napping. At the time there were no rules forbidding crews to change all four wheels during a live stage, and so the in-stage pitstop phenomenon was born. Having the opportunity to tackle the dry sections of the stages on slicks and stopping to fit studded snow tyres before the icy parts provided a huge advantage to the tune of two minutes.

Fiorio explains: “What I calculated was that it was an advantage as they were very long stages, some 40 kilometres. The stages were mostly dry or with some snow. There was a stage where the first 25 kilometres was without snow and the last 10 had the snow, so I said it is time we can gain by putting studded tyres on for the last 10 kilometres.

“I trained the guys to do that. We were not like Formula 1, who can do that in two seconds now, but at that time we had four studs for each wheel. I organised a big machine that could take all the studs out together and we came on the side on the road to do the pitstop. Putting on new studded tyres at the start of the snow we got a big advantage. We were doing it in 45 seconds which was a good time, but the gain was more, about two minutes.”

“We had a big discussion about it first but we had to do it: without the studs, we wouldn’t have got up the hill,” remembers Rohrl. “I was first and it was horrible just sitting there in the middle of the stage for a minute, doing nothing. There was a fantastic atmosphere though, with all the spectators and journalists, just like a pitlane.”

The in-stage pitstop was quickly copied by rival teams in the events following, before the FIA eventually banned the practice in 1986. In the meantime, there was no catching the Lancias of Rohrl and Alen, and the pair completed a crushing 1-2. The third factory 037, driven by French ace Jean-Claude Andruet, finished eighth after suffering a supercharger failure on day two.

The giant-killing was complete as Lancia won 20 of the 31 stages. The best from the shell-shocked Audi squad was Blomqvist, 11m18s adrift in third.

“It was a big moment because Audi was dominating the scene with the four-wheel-drive car and all the other manufacturers didn’t really have a chance,” reflects Fiorio. “So at that moment it was a great victory, but it was not the only win we had that year.”

Rivals caught onto the in-stage pitstop trick pioneered by Lancia, but only after the Italian cars had gained a lasting advantage

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Indeed, this was the start of a fierce battle against Audi that concluded with Lancia claiming an unexpected title win. Despite the Italian marque electing not to turn up to compete on the snow of Sweden or the rough Safari Rally – both events featured the expected Audi domination – it managed to wrap up the title with two rounds to spare, courtesy of a memorable 1-2-3 on home soil in Sanremo. That success followed wins in Corsica (Alen), the Acropolis (Rohrl) and New Zealand (Rohrl).

The Lancia-Audi rivalry is even the subject of a movie set to hit the big screen. Win, directed by Italian Stefano Mordini, is currently in post-production. Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays the Italian mob boss in action thriller John Wick: Chapter 2, has been cast as Fiorio, while Daniel Bruhl, who played Niki Lauda in the Formula 1 film Rush, is to portray Audi chief Roland Gumpert. German actor Volker Bruch will play the role of Rohrl. London-based Hanway Films is handling the worldwide sale of the film, which is yet to receive a release date.

And how will Scamarcio portray the title-clinching event in Italy?

"Putting on new studded tyres at the start of the snow we got a big advantage. We were doing it in 45 seconds which was a good time, but the gain was more, about two minutes" Cesare Fiorio

“The thing I remember of Sanremo was that one of the Audi team arrived in our service where we had two of the cars on the jacks,” smiles Fiorio. “He came near our rally cars and he went underneath the cars. I said, ‘What are you doing? This is not the Audi service, this is Lancia.’

“He said he was just looking because he also thought we had four-wheel drive in this car because he said you couldn’t go this fast with a two-wheel-drive car. He was very disappointed to learn that we had only two-wheel drive.”

Audi rivals were left in disbelief that the Lancia was indeed a two-wheel drive machine

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