Concept Car Of The Week: Stola S81 ‘Stratos’ (2000)

Remakes rarely eclipse the original. There have been countless attempts to ‘reinvent’ movies, songs and, yes, cars ‘for the new era’, but almost all fail to capture the essence of the original. The problem is twofold – first, something worth revisiting tends to be a celebrated work and therefore extremely difficult to match, let alone eclipse. Second, there’s a sense that those who plunder the past tend only to focus on the superficial – a catchy riff perhaps, or a ’styling’ detail – without adopting the roots of a creation.

But what if the original creator attempts to revisit one of their past works?

Marcello Gandini shows us a scale model of the S81

At the turn of the millennium, almost twenty-five years after the Lancia Stratos ceased its limited production, its designer, Marcello Gandini, was presented with an opportunity to revisit his iconic design. The call came from Stola, a Turin-based design studio known more for workaday manufacturing and prototyping than concept cars, which wanted a showstopper to bring people to its stand at the 2001 Turin motor show.

Stola stand at the 2001 Turin motor show

It’s unclear whether the idea of reimagining the Stratos was Gandini’s or not (unlikely given his modesty and seeming disinterest in the past), but the new car’s ragion d’essere was far removed from the original’s rally-winning design brief. Stola wanted to welcome the new millennium with a prototype car constructed of Ciba-Geigy LY 5185, a paintable epoxy resin it deemed superior and more versatile than traditional clay modelling techniques.

One thing was clear – the car would be named the S81 to mark the 81st birthday of the Alfredo Stola company, and also because there had initially not been permission to use the Lancia or Stratos names in association with the design.

Gandini’s S81 was, however, rather more than simply a rose-tinted nod to the Stratos, it was a genuine continuation of the themes of both that project and his subsequent work. The strong, rising wedge shape of the original was retained but strengthened in both the shape of the body and the glasshouse to create a far more solid, almost architectural, feel.

The dramatic wraparound crescent of windscreen returned with the S81, with blacked out A-pillars giving the whole glass assembly the look of a sleek one-piece visor. Visibility from the cockpit, never a Stratos strong point, was even further diminished by the side windows that rose so steeply to meet the top of the B-pillar, lending much of its monolithic appearance.

Image via formfreu.de

Proportions were similar to the original, with a slightly longer wheelbase, overall length and extra width allowing it to retain the almost-square footprint. Its height, however was almost unchanged, making its stance all the more dramatic, as did exaggerated long front and extremely short rear overhangs.

Image via formfreu.de

The bulging fenders were even more pronounced on the S81 than the original Stratos, breaking through the dramatic feature line, all set off in Day-Glo, matte orange that payed homage to the Stratos HF prototype.

Image via formfreu.de

But, for all the similarities that can be found, the S81 was by no means bound to the old Lancia. The LED headlights, among the first of their kind, were shaped into angular boomerangs, previewing similar headlight treatments a decade away. In a similar way, the taillights, laid out as a continuous LED accent strip across the rear fascia of the car were also a preview of some of today’s emerging lighting trends. It could in no way be labelled retrospective in any sense. It would have been easy to simply replicate the round rear lamps and ‘coffin-spoke’ wheels of the original, but the Spirograph rims and boomerang lamps refused to look backwards.

Its interior was perhaps even more radical than the exterior. After simultaneously lowering and launching oneself across the extra-wide sill and over a recess specially built to hold a racing helmet, the driver (and a willing passenger) would find themselves in a seat that appeared formed into the car’s monocoque, wrapping around from the rear bulkhead to the floor – even legs were held in place and supported by the elongated seat cushions.

The steering “wheel” was more of a curved rectangle, with side grips and paddle shifters. The instrumentation was minimal in the extreme – just a transparent plate that with gauges inscribed upon it, illuminated to show speed, tachometer, and so forth. There’s no evidence this actually became a workable system, but it did seem to mimic some head-up displays that were coming online at the time. An additional screen in the centre console contained other information systems.

As a halo car for Stola, the S81 was quite successful, but it was never meant to be more than a full-scale model. No production plans were ever drawn up. Its successful construction and presentation did, however, reveal Gandini, like so many of the other Italian masters, to be fully conversant in the methods of automotive production and manufacture, a skill set often overlooked when reviewing their careers.

In the following years after the introduction of the S81, Stola would be absorbed into the Blutec Corporation. Lancia remains active as a marque in Italy, but seems ever-closer to extinction. The Stratos had a short-lived revival from 2010 to 2012, but that design was a Ferrari-based, Pininfarina creation that was wholly retro, and remained a one-off.

And the S81 itself? It is now in the collection of Milanese architect and entrepreneur Corrado Lopresto (who also owns the Lancia Sibilio, itself based on the original Lancia Stratos and also designed by Gandini), where it keeps company with examples of other great Italian marques.

Tech Spec

First seen Turin, 2001

Designer Marcello Gandini

Length 3915mm
Wheelbase 2400mm
Width 1976mm
Height 1135mm

Tyres 225/40R18 (f) 295/35R18 (r)

For more Stola S81 images visit formfreu.de