The Lancia Stratosis in many gearheads’ dream garages for its legendary looks and rally performance. The “new” Stratos, coachbuilt from a Ferrari F430 base, has been around for years but this presentation of it by Jason Cammisa is the most complete and jubilant you’ll find.
ISSIMI Official, the new YouTube channel that’s published this, describes itself as “the premier platform for peer-to-peer automobile sales.” Why an upscale Craigslist is making hosted car showcase videos like this I’m not entirely sure, but it seems to be doing a pretty bang-up job. The production value on this clip is impressive and the presentation kind of reminds me of TopGear’s best non-specialty segments from its golden pre-punch years.
Cammisa himself has been a mainstay of automotive journalism for some time, but we haven’t seen a lot of him on camera since his days of hosting MotorTrend videos. Based on this clip I’m glad he’s back–his enthusiasm is fun.
As for the Ferrari-based unofficial Stratos itself, most of you reading this have probably read and watched rundowns on it before but Cammisa goes so far as to call it the greatest application of a Ferrari V8 ever.
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“It’s one of the only engines I can think of that has enough character to match the looks of this car,” he says at one point. “It’s more like a Lotus Elise than an F430,” he says at another.
While acknowledging that this $750,000 Stratos revival is not a great car, Cammisa explains why it’s a great time, and somehow, worth the money. Even if the cabin gets too hot to wear pants.
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