Fiat's takeover of Lancia preceded their takeover of Alfa Romeo by around 17 years, and while industrial giant Fiat would seem like a suitable companion to the smaller Italian brands, what resulted in both cases was an unfortunate dilution of each brand's distinctive products. Odd then, that the Fiat-Chrysler merger has been so successful, whereas Lancia has been driven into the ground with Alfa Romeo's demise looking more and more certain.

The Delta came from the second wave of Fiat-spiked Lancia products, and the Delta S4 came from a tube steel factory, seeing as it shared nothing but its silhouette with the Deltas scattered about European roadways. Itself an evolution of the WRC Group B Lancia 037, the Delta S4 was powered by a mid-ship turbocharged, supercharged and intercooled 1.8L 4-cylinder. The combination was good for 5 wins in its 12 race entries, but not good enough for a season victory in its sole years of competition, 1985 and 1986. US rally fans would have been fortunate to witness the Delta S4's 1986 victory in the Olympus Rally in Washington state.