The New Stratos — Jason Cammisa on the Icons

These are the new straw fingers, it's no Atlanta, but it looks like it's a modern reinterpretation of what one of the world's greatest rally cars would look like if it were made today like the original. This omage car is silly, weird and absolutely beautiful, ditch your Fall in love with whatever grotesque mass-produced supercar you think you love. This is the car you would have on your wall if posters still existed. The original release. States made its debut in 1971, when everything on the road was big, square and round. the strata look obscene now just imagine what it looked like then straw toast was designed by March hi Gandini and he was either completely crazy or a genius but either way he had the best drugs of anyone in the business.

Gandy's kneeling creations are among the most beautiful and outrageous machines of all time. He made the Lamborghini Miura, the Bugatti All 10, the Chizetti Moroder and the mother of all billboard cars the Countach but style is only half of it. The story that consolidated the Stratus as an icon is that it slid first in a straight line in the World Rally Championship and destroyed everything in its path. It won its first rally and its second and did not stop winning. The Stratos took the constructors' championship. of 1974 and the 75 and 76 scoring more than double the points of its next closest competitor, the reason why the Stratus was the first car designed as a rally car from the beginning, everything else was just a rally car. converted road and the new Strato, on the other hand, is not a rally car at all, it is based on a road car could have been a very bad thing, but it is not under.

It's a Ferrari, but that's a double-edged sword. The fact is that Ferrari tried to kill the new drop. Ferrari doesn't like competition and that's why standing here in 2019 when this car was on the cover of a million magazines in 2005 and then again in 2010, but the story of the new straw fingers starts even before that , the story of the new Stratos begins almost twenty years ago when a student at The Royal College of the Art studying automotive design decides he wants to make a modern interpretation of the Lancia Stratos and not only finishes this project but then raises enough money to build one and then convinces the Geneva Motor Show to give it a In the space right in front of Bugatti, the car wouldn't have gotten more attention if it fell off a spaceship and attracted all the right attention, including that of a German billionaire that he wanted one so that guy would spend the next five years and like 15.

Million dollars developing the car together with Pininfarina. This is not a car kit. It's body building at its finest. They built two life-size clay models of the car. They took it to a wind tunnel and then had a Formula One driver tune it. suspension, so they take the car to Ferrari and give it to the big boss Luca di Montezemolo and say, hey, do you want to give it your blessing, he gets behind the wheel, takes the wheels off the thing, just completely annihilates it and charm. He loved it so much that he signed the hood of the car.

He loved it so much that he killed it. That's right, he picks up the phone, calls Pininfarina, and tells them that if you build this car, you'll never work in this city again. It was a classic kiss of death wah-wah good night, goodbye and at that very moment the book on the new Stratos was closed oh, but the straw toes are not dead, it's just a little old under the Stratus there a Ferrari f430 and since the f430 is no longer in production no one needs Ferrari's blessing all you need is a used one at 4:30 and a big 8 inch bag of money was cut from the wheelbase and everything what you see is custom made, from the wraparound windshield to the carbon fiber body panels, it weighs a hair under 3000 pounds 110 less than the Scuderia, the lightweight version of the 430 and has more horsepower than the spiria 540, so the Stratus is shorter than the Scuderia and it's faster than the scooter cockpit and it's definitely cooler too because unlike the Scuderia I think I'm having hot flashes, no Jesus I just flooded my basement, There isn't a single car that isn't upgraded with a shifter, but this manual transmission has more than just a clutch pedal because the Scuderia and almost all four.

The 30's never came with a manual, we never got to interact with this engine at all and I had no idea how much we were actually missing in this engine, it has no mass, it just accelerates, it will go from 2000 to 8000 rpm in a second and back again. the other way, which means when I shift I have to shift as fast as I can or the revs will drop too low. This is an epic, epic, epic engine, it's one of the only engines I can think of that has enough character to match its looks. In this part, speaking of character, there is a place to put the helmet on the door, just like the original straw fingers, and many people equate character with flaws.

I'm one of them, so let's talk about the biggest flaw of this car, it's so hot in this. cabin I had to take off my pants and that's going to make the next sequence a little awkward because I have to talk about getting in and out of this car, as you can see there really isn't much room, don't get stuck here, move here, don't stress the carbon and voila, a midget Romanian contortionist who would really have to warm up before getting in and out of this car with grace. Don't look, it's like doing yoga. Cutting sugar inches from the middle makes it difficult to live with but that short wheelbase makes the strata spin like it's nothing.

This side of a gt3 race car is raw, it's uncluttered, it looks more like a Lotus Elise than an f430 and that's the biggest compliment you can ever give a sports car. Estrada would be miserable as an everyday car, the F430 was not. I have a complaint about the Ferrari F430 and this one is a bit backwards so bear with me for a second, it's too good a car when you hit it, it's amazing, but when you drive. Normally you can only get burrs on it, it's just a good car and when I go out to have fun and go for a drive I don't want to be in a good car, I want to be in something that is crazy, that is an experience all the time the fingers of straw feet is then a Ferrari with the fat trimmed here's the deep, dark, dirty secret about two passenger mid-engined V8 Ferraris, they look amazing, they're up here, really good engines somewhere around here and then Everything else about the experience doesn't really want to match up, but the Stratus fixes that because it looks amazing, it has a great engine, it has an amazing transmission and the rest of the experience is dozens across the board.

I love this car, okay, now we need to talk. about the elephant in the room the car costs three quarters of a million dollars look every Ferrari is an expensive car and this is a very expensive car I don't have a problem with the fact that it costs three quarters of a million dollars just I have a problem with the fact that I don't have enough money to own one. I mean, I can't even imagine what it would take to get three quarters of a million. Yes, let's consider that worth it. I don't put a price on a good time and in that sense the new Stratus is priceless, eliminating the habitability turns the f430 into a bad car but we had a great time and since we had a great time we will never go out of style this new Strano s' es Timeless, just like 45-year-old Gandini designing his manual gearbox and Ferrari v8, these are things that will never go out of date.

I'm sure I'll wake up with a horse's head in my bed for saying this, but estrade OHS is the best Ferrari v8 ever made, so it doesn't drive like a kick car and it's not built like a kick car, but it's Italian, so every time it starts to rain, the windshield wipers stop working. Every time it stops raining, the windshield wipers work. Well, at least the engine runs, so the whole time I can't really see anything. Oh, I fixed it. I hit the steering column and what he cleaned up I will never put out again.