Let's talk about Lancia Stratos....

[AshyGreen]

Okay...in hindsight, it might not be the best idea for me to leave the FWD 60s rally and jump straight to one of the most legendarily overpowered, RWD rally car in the history of rallying.

To put it bluntly: IT IS SCARY AS ♥♥♥♥.

I feel my balls slowly escaping back into my groin every time I cut a corner with this thing. Even the slightest push on the ♥♥♥♥♥ would immediately cause oversteer. My palm is sweating all over for each stage I complete with it - I don't even care about winning now, as long as I don't crash this thing half way through, it's already lucky for me.

And worst of all, you simply can't turn on drive assists...because it takes away all the feedback from the road, and trust me, you'll need that precision control.

Now I understand why all retro rally events in real world with Stratos present are all held on tarmac. Because driving this thing on gravel is absolute insanity.

This thing is glorious.

[Arya]

The Oh-37 had another major improvement: it was possibly to change gears without awkwardly caressing the co-driver's thigh. A massive improvement.

And to be fair, it did amazingly well for a RWD car. Any RWD taking on the Quattro and winning, on gravel, deserves recognition for shear guts. Lancia grabbed a bull by the horns.

[danman]

The one driver in the video said it didn't even have a handbrake. Is that reflected in the game?

It surely explains why you don't even need one to throw it into the corner. You can just floor the throttle and its rear will break out

[DocStrangelove]

It has a handbrake in the game

[Sekiguchi]

Check out those sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vra2_iwxR4

Full video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtskisrzDCo

[Arya]

Alfa V6? I have to say, they made a perfect choice.

[IvanisOneX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbKED6TZNlg Stratos pushed to the limits on Monte Carlo :)

[elourino]

I just realized that driving the Stratos is the harderst i ever concentrated on a game before. It's an animal! You just drive along and you are like "careful careful, i ve got this, nice, yeah" aaaand on the next turn you are totaled.

[Aurora]

Początkowo opublikowane przez elourino:

I just realized that driving the Stratos is the harderst i ever concentrated on a game before. It's an animal! You just drive along and you are like "careful careful, i ve got this, nice, yeah" aaaand on the next turn you are totaled.

And yet it's a breeze compared to the mighty 037

[Porkhammer]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Aurora:

Początkowo opublikowane przez elourino:

I just realized that driving the Stratos is the harderst i ever concentrated on a game before. It's an animal! You just drive along and you are like "careful careful, i ve got this, nice, yeah" aaaand on the next turn you are totaled.

And yet it's a breeze compared to the mighty 037

100% agreed. After driving the 037 for a couple of hours, one can actually relax while driving the Stratos. You have all the time in the world to take corners.

[Osigurach]

Sorry for bumping.

I find the Stratos much much easier to handle than 037.
The 037 is a lot more powerful than the Stratos and on top of that it's part of the Group B era.

While the Stratos can be a tricky S.O.B, the 037 will literally try to kill you on every corner. The Manta 400 does handles like a heavy Mercedes on the gravel but I find the thing a safer choice for Group B RWD class.

[rob_every05]

The Stratos is nowhere near as scary as the 037. Both are far easier to drive on gravel than tar, which for me shows that the tar physics in mid engined cars are flawed in this game to some extent be they rwd or 4wd sadly.

The 037 on tar is awful, stupidly twitchy and pivoting on nothing, which is daft as that is exactly what the Stratos was like in reality, short wheelbase, huge rear tyres, small fronts. 037 was a tarmac special, planted, fluid and race car like.

But none of them are a patch on the R5 on ice, jeez that is just out of this world hard to drive.

[TheSidwysDrftr]

In my view, this vehicle is a beautiful nightmare.

I haven’t played as much as compared to the guys who have 500+ hours in the game, but on gravel - on entry and apex it understeers, and oversteers at the end of the exit.

On tarmac, I can get the turn in - but I’ll die as soon as I have over 3% acceleration even though my wheel is straightened out of the corner.

I don’t think I will ever adapt to this car unless I dedicate the rest of the time I ever play on this game to the stratos, and I enjoy the other cars so I’ll definitely avoid this vehicle.

I’d rather drive the rally GT cars instead and those are already insanely tough.