Shiro Nakamura, chief designer at Nissan, and lead on the new Nissan GT-R, speaks to Motor Trend about his favorite car designs. Top of the list? Lancia Stratos.
“I like everything from Bill Mitchell. GM in the 1950s and 1960s was very strong. I like the Mako Shark, the original Oldsmobile Toronado. Also, I like Pininfarina and Giuigiaro.” I then pressed Nakamura to name specific cars that he admired. And he didn’t hesitate. “I like the De Tomaso Mangusta, the 289 Cobra, and maybe most of all the Lancia Stratos.” When I responded that the Stratos is one of my favorite cars, Nakamura turned squarely toward me. “Yes. It is so good.”
Why can’t these sites that have content on the web have more hyperlinks to relevant content?
Wow, that Lancia _is_ a fantastically beautiful car. Maybe one day I can be wealthy enough to find one.
I’ll bet it would also make a great kit car for other people to build.
Beautiful? The Stratos and the GT-R (a car I admire even more fiercely after seeing it lap the Top Gear track absurdly quickly) share a certain functional brutalism that is fairly ungainly.
I’d describe the GT-R (and even the Lancia) as looking like a grizzly bear in full stride: quite ridiculous until you realize it can run down a racehorse. His other picks are in that vein.
I suppose I’m just more of an E-Type drophead/’63-67 Corvette/Nissan Figaro kinda guy.
As for your comment about links, it hurts your case a lot that Motor Trend included a photo of a Stratos on the article page, and it was a better photo (for illustrating the styling of the Lancia in stock form) than anything in the first page of Flickr results.