Lancia Delta Integrale nameplate set to make a return?

An old – and hallowed – nameplate may be set to make a return. Word is that some quarters of upper management at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) are looking to commission an all-new Lancia Delta Integrale before the marque becomes history.

Autocar says it understands that the push to bring back the revered nameplate in a new model is being made at the highest levels, but adds that there has been nothing to suggest that further attempts to revive Lancia have been heard of.

It has been said that FCA head honcho Sergio Marchionne doesn’t have a very particularly fond view of Lancia – which is nearly defunct – and is very much focused on the successful reinvention of Alfa Romeo (as seen in the new rear wheel-drive Giulia). The report adds that Marchionne is likely to view any new Lancia model as an unneeded complication.

Still, management members at FCA are said to be fervent in their thinking that it would be erroneous to allow the Lancia badge to slip into the night when the Delta Integrale name still holds so much prestige.

The reverence is of course for the first-gen Tipo 831 Delta, which won 46 individual World Rally Championship races and six consecutive manufacturers’ titles in its rallying heyday.

Subsequent second- and severely bloated third-gen Deltas and the two decades of attempting to reinvent Lancia as a luxury brand haven’t worked at all, and the marque is languishing towards death. If a new Delta Integrale does come about, it would have to be something very special to gain a dollop of clout the old one had.