After almost three years, the ground-up restoration of the ex-Anatoly Arutunoff Lancia Stratos HF Group IV, affectionally known as ‘The Duck’ thanks to its bulging bright yellow bodywork, is finally complete. This was the delivery sign-off shakedown…
Here’s a Lancia Stratos like no other. ‘The Duck’, as it became affectionately known, boasts an extraordinary period American road-racing competition history, comprising multiple entries in the Daytona 24 Hours, 12 Hours of Sebring and 6 Hours of Watkins Glen. It was campaigned in the FIA World Sportscar Championship, IMSA GT Championship and SCCA Trans-Am Championship. And it has the very best Stratos history file we have ever encountered, including original invoices from its conversion to Group IV specification in 1977 and Arutunoff’s handwritten notes from throughout its competition career.
After falling into a sad state of disrepair in recent decades, we were entrusted by the Lancia’s new owner with overseeing a long-overdue restoration to its former competition glory. And we’re thrilled to report that, after almost three years, the project is finally complete.
You can click here to read the full story of this extraordinary Stratos or you can click here to read all the previous restoration updates on our Features page. You won’t be surprised to learn that there was no shortage of volunteers when to attending the pre-delivery sign-off shakedown at the Autodromo Riccardo Paletti in Varano.
Looking at these photos of this resplendent Group IV Lancia Stratos after being painstakingly brought back to life, it’s difficult to recall the acute state of disrepair in which we originally found the car in America, having languished untouched for many, many years. That condition has only made restoring this veteran of American endurance motorsport back to its former glory all the more satisfying. It’s important to note the brief for this project was not to restore ‘The Duck’ to ‘as-new’ condition. This Lancia’s storied racing history is so fundamental to its identity that to wipe all signs of its use would, we feel, have been misjudged. As such, the plan was to maintain these benign signs of use while comprehensively overhauling the mechanical condition of the car, safeguarding its future for years to come.
Because this Stratos’ story was written not on European rally stages like most of its competition counterparts, but rather on the United States’ most famous road-racing circuits, there were so many charming yet uniquely challenging details to establish along the way and get absolutely right. Take the headlights, for example, which were not pop-ups as found on the Stratos HF Stradale but rather recessed on the leading edge bonnet and crudely covered with clear Perspex. Or the plethora of retrofitted dials and gauges spanning the width of the dashboard. Or the chunky singular studded bucket seat, which we had restored by the same local saddler in Modena who trims the interiors for Pagani.
We couldn’t help think of ‘Toly’ Arutunoff when we fired up ‘The Duck’ and took to the Varano racetrack. He poured so much time and energy into this Lancia, not only transforming it from a ‘standard’ road car to a Group IV road-racer, but also racing it extensively across the United States. It so happened that there was a reasonable crowd of onlookers at the shakedown, all of whom were absolutely thrilled to see ‘The Duck’ back in the rudest of health after such a long time.
So what now for this history-steeped Stratos? The ultimate plan for ‘The Duck’ was for its new custodian to return the car to the Daytona International Speedway for the HSR Classic Daytona in 2026. And that’s absolutely still the case. Rest assured that we will keep you updated as this Lancia prepares to head back across the Atlantic for the first time since ‘Toly’ Arutunoff first took the car stateside aboard the S.S. Queen Elizabeth 2 back in November of 1976. We can neither confirm nor deny that certain members of the Girardo & Co. crew are already growing their hair in an attempt to emulate ‘Toly’ at Daytona. It’s going to be quite the reunion…
Photos: Gabriele Natalini for Girardo & Co.
We’ve sold a number of road and competition Lancia Stratos’ over the years – you can view them all by clicking here.