I had two childhood touchpoints with the Lancia Stratos HF. The first was in a deck of automobile playing cards. These were picture cards with a hero shot, the name and make, followed by a table of the car’s specifications. Us kids would shuffle the deck, deal out the cards and take turns to call out a spec from the top-facing card. Holder with the highest spec wins, and got to take the other cards. The ‘kings’ of the deck were usually distinguished by significantly higher specs, like a Ferrari’s V12 engine versus a saloon’s 4 cylinders; or some crazy top speed, power, weight, etc. This made the V6-equipped Lancia Stratos a middling card, when in real life it was a rally champion three years straight in 1974, '75 and '76!
Of course I didn’t know better back then. And even the photograph didn’t do justice to its wedge shaped styling because of the ugly row of rally lights bolted to the front!
Safe to say the Lancia was never a favorite until my second encounter with the design, this time as a somewhat sleeker Diaclone Car Robot. Stripped of the rally lights and molded with the pop-ups retracted, I could finally make out the striking Italian colors emblazoned on its bodywork.
Source: @diaclonecards on X
Of course, the actual toy robot was nowhere as sleek as it was portrayed in the illustration, but nevertheless, a marked improvement in my eyes.
When I started this car x pen and pencil project, I was determined to find a miniature diecast as close as possible to my idealized Stratos: the arrowhead green / white / red ‘Alitalia’ rally markings, no extra lights, and pop-ups retracted. This brought me to discover yet another brand making 1/64 scale mini cars: Aoshima, a niche player in scale models. It is quite amazing the amount of detail they managed to include at such a small size.
And of course, I matched it to another Italian inspired gaggle of stationery, specifically a BOXY ‘Milano Design’ pen case. Although ‘Milano Design’ included a series of pens and mechanical pencils, they were more baroque in style, resembling roman columns. Instead I picked out a couple of BOXY 100 ballpoints in green and red, plus a The Stick Special 0.5mm in white to complete the triumvirate.
Last note: The Stratos HF (High Fidelity) was also designed by Marcello Gandini while he was working at Bertone. In 1970 he had proposed an even more striking design called the Stratos Zero that only existed as a drivable show car. The Zero will be a future pairing if I manage to find a good representation of it!
