HEADLINER
DELTA BRAVO
BECAUSE THEY DON’T MAKE ’EM LIKE THEY USED TO
The Lancia Delta is without question rallying royalty... but there’s always room for improvement. Just ask Juha Kankkunen
WORDS GREG POTTS
PHOTOGRAPHY LAT
“JUHA KANKKUNEN HAS DRIVEN EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD OF GRAVEL AND SNOW”
“So Juha, that 1987 title winning season. What stands out to you from that year?”
TG is chatting to four-time World Rally champion and genuine hero Juha Kankkunen, who at 63 years of age shows no sign of slowing down. He won his first WRC title at the wheel of the Peugeot 205 T16 Evo 2 as the fearsome Group B era was brought to an abrupt end in 1986, then followed that up a year later with a second title in the Group A-spec Lancia Delta HF Integrale.
“I can’t remember it,” he replies in a typically Finnish fashion. “I won in the UK and I think the Olympus Rally in America, but it was a long time ago.”
When you see what he was doing with the Delta in the images on these pages, it’s a wonder he’s not reliving the memories every time he shuts his eyes. Still, Kankkunen has driven everything in the world of gravel and snow, starting out in his father’s Ford Escort ice racer in the Seventies before competing for the final time at the 2010 running of Rally Finland. But it’s Lancia we’re here to talk about, hence the rather short-lived recap of that season.