Back in 2011, the pet project of a moneyed German executive to resurrect the iconic 1970s-era Lancia Stratos rally/sports car birthed a functioning prototype. The car, known as the New Stratos, was built off the shortened chassis of a Ferrari F430 Scuderia, and it looked, drove, and sounded incredible. Orders soon came flying in?but Pininfarina, which undertook the prototype’s transformation to production, would only build the cars on the say-so of its more famous client, Ferrari. Which Ferrari didn’t give.
Seven years later, it appears that the project’s backers have found a workaround. As the saying goes, if Ferrari doesn’t let its favorite coachbuilder hack away at a few of its prized sports cars, find a new coachbuilder that doesn’t care what Ferrari thinks.
Manifattura Automobili Torino (MAT) is that company. With the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG003 under its belt, the outfit isn’t new to building limited-production supercars. Production of the New Stratos has been set for 25 cars, with customers being given the choice of a road car, a rally-style Safari iteration, and a variant called the GT Racer. When we drove the prototype back in 2011, we were told that the Stratos could be ginned together from Ferrari’s F430, an even older 360 Modena, or the relatively fresh 458 Italia?all of which feature mid-mounted V-8s with flat-plane crankshafts. We imagine those options are still on the table.

New Lancia Stratos Driven: Fer...