The Lancia Delta HF Turbo Deserves A Place Among The Great ’80 Hot Hatches

For an otherwise very prosaic family hatchback, the original Lancia Delta spawned an impressive number of performance versions. The world of rallying was mostly to thank for that – that was why Lancia developed the various iterations of the all-wheel drive HF Integrale that utterly dominated the WRC in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

Before the Integrale, there was also 1985’s Delta S4 Stradale, built as a base for Lancia’s rally contender in the bonkers Group B era. With its turbocharged and supercharged engine sitting amidships in a spaceframe chassis, its only real link to the regular Delta was its name and its basic silhouette.

Neither of these was the first hot Delta, though. That had arrived back in 1983, simply badged as the Delta HF. Powering it was a 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, sending around 128bhp through the front wheels via a five-speed manual.

Thanks to that turbocharger, it was a bit of a powerhouse by early ’80s hot hatch standards – in 1983, the Mk2 VW Golf GTI was only available in 110bhp eight-valve guise, the Ford Escort RS1600i mustered 113bhp, and even the 1.9-litre version of the Peugeot 205 GTi that arrived a year later was a little behind at 126bhp.

All this meant 0-62mph in around eight seconds, and a top speed of around 122mph, making it one of the quicker hatches of its day.

Various changes came throughout the front-wheel drive HF’s surprisingly long life. In 1985, to coincide with the launch of the mid-engined S4 Stradale, it was renamed the HF Turbo to really hammer home its hot hatch cred. A switch from twin Weber carbs to fuel injection came in 1986, upping power to 138bhp. Then, in 1992, very late in the first-gen Delta’s life, the HF Turbo gained the quad round headlights already worn by the S4 and Integrale.

The original Delta was replaced by a second-gen car in 1993, but by this point, Lancia was on the brink of pulling out of the UK, so we never got it here. Nevertheless, the HF Turbo name returned, now as the range-topping hot hatch version, with a 183bhp 2.0-litre turbo four.

It’s the ultra-boxy original that we reckon deserves more love, though. It was inevitable that it would start to disappear into the shadows once the all-wheel drive homologation special versions of the Delta started cropping up, but it remained one of the quickest front-wheel drive hot hatches of its era, even as its rivals started to gain more power.

There’s another reason to love it, too, mainly for those of us separated from the rest of Europe by the English Channel. See, while the all-wheel drive Integrale was only ever produced in left-hand drive, the lesser HF Turbo was sold in Britain and Ireland with the steering wheel on the correct side.

Unfortunately, the fact that it never quite achieved the same classic status as its big brother means far fewer have been preserved, so the HF Turbo is an increasingly rare sight in the UK.

When they do come up, though, they’re a far more affordable way into a proper turbocharged Lancia Delta – as we write this, there’s a tidy-looking 1990 example, resplendent in red with pepper pot alloys listed at £15,500. We don’t need to tell you that a good Integrale, even in original eight-valve form, is worth a lot more than that these days.

So, as its more famous siblings slip ever more into the realms of unobtainium, is now the HF Turbo’s time to shine?