Lancia Delta HF Turbo
Why 6.9: The same Giugiaro body as the Integrale, half the drivetrain: 1,585 cc, one turbocharger, front-wheel drive and 1,020 kg. It was the affordable Delta for its entire life and it is still the affordable Delta, which is the only reason a decent number survived being used properly.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
Boost, wastegate and a workmanlike Lampredi twin-cam, without the transfer-case whine that gives the four-wheel-drive Deltas their layered rally noise. Below 5,500 rpm there is nothing to build to, which leaves it among the plainer turbo fours here.
4-cylinder · turbocharged · 5,500 rpm redline · rated 5.1 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €14k (1986) → €18k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Built before ISOFIX existed, so there are no anchor points at all. A child seat here is a seatbelt installation, and the belt geometry of the period was not designed with one in mind.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
Everything the Lancia Delta is famous for belongs to the four-wheel-drive cars, which makes the HF Turbo easy to overlook and, for years, easy to buy. It is the same Giugiaro hatchback shell, but with a 1,585 cc turbocharged four driving the front wheels through a ZF five-speed — 130 PS at launch in 1983, 140 once fuel injection arrived — rather than the two-litre and all-wheel drive that the HF 4WD and Integrale brought from 1986. At 1,020 kg it is meaningfully lighter than an Integrale and the character is completely different: boost that lands in a heap, a front axle left to deal with all of it, and none of the four-wheel-drive security that makes the fast Deltas feel unburstable. Lancia had left the United States in 1982 and the Delta was never federalised, so American ownership is a 25-year-import-rule story from end to end. The HF Turbo spent three decades as the cheap route into a Delta, which meant most were simply used until the rust caught up — Lancia's corrosion reputation from this era is entirely deserved. Prices have followed the Integrale upward at a respectful distance, and a good one is now a sought-after car in its own right rather than the consolation prize it was for so long.