Ciao, belter: why I'm selling my Lancia Delta Integrale after 24 years
Finally, I ask for tips to help mentally process selling the car. “Borrow ideas from how people manage and express their grief for loved ones,” he suggests. “You could make an effort to cherish your memories of the car, such as by creating a photo album of places you’ve been in it, writing a story about your experiences in it or taking it for one last treasured journey.”
It is, therefore, strictly on doctor’s orders that I liberate the Delta from its protective Carcoon bubble for one final summer’s evening raid. I feel a Pavlovian response to holding the slim, fobless keys in my hand, the chunky thunk of the central locking, tapping the transponder on the aftermarket immobiliser (Thatcham-approved, naturally), the resistance of the ignition barrel and the resulting start-up that brings an expectant whirr from the engine above the exhaust’s bass note.
All eight diagnostic panel LEDs extinguish (always a nervy moment for Integrale owners), and we’re off.
It’s not far from my Edinburgh home to a particular favourite B-road: smooth and twisty, it climbs and falls over wild hills, with arrow-like straights through the valleys. There is no traffic and, importantly, I have no passengers: this is a private communion on medical advice, a consolidation of personal memories.
Peering over the bulging, tabletop bonnet, I’m gently slotting the rubbery gearstick between second, third and fourth and keeping the 210bhp, 220lb ft inline four on a simmer, but there’s still lots of lag until the Garrett T3 turbocharger gathers its faculties and stuffs a bar of pressure into the engine. It responds in a frenzy of acceleration: with just 1300kg to move, the 33-year-old Evo still shifts.
