2022 WRC News & Rumours

[focus206]

Lancia, owned by Fiat since 1969, had been pronounced dead by then-FCA supremo Sergio Marchionne back in 2014.
The death sentence, pronounced by the manager in his characteristically blunt language, seemingly left no doubts:

“We realized the Lancia brand has no appeal outside of Italy. It has no heritage neither in Europe nor in the U.S.”

source: https://medium.com/roadster-life/har...l-b20fbabd3c4d

Marchionne didn't care for motorsport and this sentence reflects that. Lancia Ypsilons and the other few models didn't have appeal anywhere (but can you picture Marchionne saying that one of his brands didn't have appeal not even in the home country?), while in the rest of the world Lancia is known more or less only by motorsport fans. There's no much difference between in and outside of Italy about Lancia.

[Andre Oliveira]

https://dirtfish.com/rally/fia-launc...tem-from-2022/

FIA rally driver ranking coming for 2022

Where it is?

[Eli]

https://dirtfish.com/rally/renault-r...unch-timeline/

Renault Clio Rally3 coming in April 2023, good to see someone other than M-sport invest in that category.

[wyler]

https://dirtfish.com/rally/renault-r...unch-timeline/

Renault Clio Rally3 coming in April 2023, good to see someone other than M-sport invest in that category.

reportedly (by latvala among others) also toyota has green light on rally3 while waiting for clarification about mild hybrid for rally 2.

[Tom K]

Where it is?

I think first ranking listing was supposed to be in April

[AnttiL]

reportedly (by latvala among others) also toyota has green light on rally3 while waiting for clarification about mild hybrid for rally 2.

Latvala said during Rally Finland 2021 that it's likely Toyota will make a Rally3 before Rally2, but it won't happen before second half of 2023 at earliest.

[OHL]

Sounds like whoever started this rumour may think Lancia are relevant outside Italy.

At a quick glance, yes it might be like that.
But if you are Stellantis and you want to launch a premium BEV product under one of your existing brands, Lancia is not a bad choice.
Volvo did this with Polestar and I expect others will follow suit.

If you go to the Stellantis website right now and select the Lancia brand, there is a large photo of all of their rally cars on the Lancia landing page. The photo is larger than the one for their current product.
This cannot be by mistake and looks to remind people of the story of Lancia, not the current underwhelming product offering.

The demographic who have a soft spot in their hearts for these cars are also likely to have the disposable income to buy one.
A re-imagined Beta or Delta would probably sell quite well, with the right kind of margin, if done in limited release alongside another decent product.

Audi is also considering to offer a re-imagined Sport Quattro so there has to be market interest for these cars.

A rally program to go along side would make sense depending on the amount of money Stellantis wanted to put into marketing it.

[WRCStan]

At a quick glance, yes it might be like that.
But if you are Stellantis and you want to launch a premium BEV product under one of your existing brands, Lancia is not a bad choice.

If I were Stellantis and wanted a solely EV premium brand, I'd start a new brand as there isn't one in their group to use for that purpose. I'd never heard of Polestar until a year or two ago and now I associate them with new EV technology, just like Tesla, another relatively new brand from nothing. Lancia will always be associated with being Italian and therefore unreliable, EV tech is too fresh for consumers to worry. Then there's the mafia image which I have from what I saw with my own eyes having spent time in Italy when I was younger. This is how branding works but this could all be my casual British racism shining through, so the question to ask yourselves is would you buy/lease/want a Lancia BEV? At product level let's be honest, they are going to be common platform cars to the other brands anyway which already include premium options - if they offer BEV options.

They may sell a few Delta EVs to nostalgic bored 55 year olds (who won't help/kick their adult kids out the home), but it's such a tenuous link between an EV company of 2026 and the cars that went rallying 'back in the day'. It just sounds like corporate speak for raising expectations at this point. I don't agree WRC is right for a premium brand even. Peugeot have much better global appeal and just as much rally heritage and despite these rumours or intent, I believe that's more likely even if it were true Stellantis gets behind just one of their brands for WRC. As always I look forward to being proven wrong.

[wyler]

this could all be my casual British racism shining through.

from italy. yes. definitely.

[focus206]

Lancia will always be associated with being Italian and therefore unreliable, EV tech is too fresh for consumers to worry. Then there's the mafia image which I have from what I saw with my own eyes having spent time in Italy when I was younger. This is how branding works but this could all be my casual British racism shining through

lol okay, let's just shut down all Italian brands and the whole country then, because some people associate us with mafia. Which is a bit ironic coming from a Brit, after Anglo-Americans re-instated mafia rule in Sicily against Fascist Italy, but that's another story.

Going back to serious talk, in terms of motorsport, Lancia would be a long awaited return by many - most younger fans all over the world have heard of the Delta, the Stratos and probably the Rally 037, especially thanks to Youtube and videogames.
In case Stellantis wants to make a EV brand, I wouldn't worry too much of having many potential customers avoiding EV Lancia because "ew Italian unrealiable pizza mafia mussolini car" stereotypes (if they have these stereotypes, they probably have some towards Peugeot too). There are way bigger aspects - if the car will be actually good, people's faith in EVs, etc.
I recently got a Skoda... hearing less and less people referring to it as a trash Eastern European car from behind the iron curtain. With that said, I don't care if it will be Lancia, Peugeot or somebody else, I just hope there will be a new manufacturer soon.