Delta

Thanks to the success of the Golf, Fiat President Umberto Agnelli and Lancia's CEO Giovanni Sguazzini entrusted Giugiaro with the design of the "Y5," a new compact-class passenger car. The model with fastback body style was planned as a means of launching a new era at Lancia leveraging on the history of the traditional brand from Borgo San Paolo, which for so many decades had stood for prestige, class, quality, performance, reliability, and individuality.

The Lancia Delta was unveiled at the 1979 German Motor Show in Frankfurt. The Delta's lines were continuous, well defined, and clear. They described geometrical shapes and motifs, trapezes and truncated pyramids. In the Delta, which appeared a few years after the Golf, Giugiaro was able to correct a major shortcoming of the German top seller: this time there was distinctly more space for rear-seat passengers. The new model was more competitive than other compact fastback sedan in this class.

For this new symbol of Lancia policy, Giugiaro was allocated sufficient funds for high-class interior equipment and trim, including top-quality fabrics and workmanship. The front of the Delta proudly displayed the new radiator grill echoing the earlier Lancia grill in classic coat-of-arms style. It was intended effectively to act as a guideline through the whole subsequent model range. The tailgate extended down as far as the rear bumper, which made loading and unloading luggage and similar items much easier. In order to match with the rest of the car, for Delta the company resorted to painting front and rear plastic underbodies.

Delta was the only Lancia model to ever be chosen "Car of the Year" (in 1980); other versions of the Delta appeared in the mid-1980s: the Lancia Delta HF 4WD and the Integrale 16V based on the 4x4 transmission system. With these turbocharged versions in motor-sport trim, Lancia dominated the rally scene for some years, with six successive world championship titles (1987 to 1992).