There are certain cars that are ‘it’. The Mercedes 190E Evo II, Audi RS3, Ford Escort RS Cosworth, Porsche RS America and the Lancia Delta Evoluzione I. Some of these we got, others we could only dream of. The Delta Evo I being one of those lust worthy pieces of kit.

First we have (what should be) a meticulous Delta Evo 1 build that will be built as a track car by a few Swedish fanatics over at Alive.se, which includes a custom carbon and fiberglass molded bodykit with a forged and balanced engine producing around 550-600hp when finished, which will also include a completely flat underbody, diffuser and Lexan windows. Check out the original forum post over at Alive.se where there are tons of pics of the build and if you speak Swedish you’ll have a better grasp than us with what’s going on.

Our main image catcher, Tony Harmer recently made a trip to Tokyo (we were all extremely jealous) where he spotted a fine example of a Delta cruising the streets of Tokyo, which you can see below. We’ve also included photography from our feature story about London tunnel running, Bring the Noise, in the Fall 2008 issue. And finally we have a few cutaways that we’ve found after countless and tireless hours of searching the internet for cool shit.

In closing, we hope you have the same love, passion and ultimately geek out for a car that dominated rally from the late 80s, early 90s as we do. Even though we may have never gotten them in the States, the Lancia Delta, in pretty much any form, makes us tingle from the inside. And that’s not just the valium talking.

(Hat tip: BuildThreads; Japan photography by Tony Harmer, model photography shot by Tony Harmer/Andrew Link, Bring The Noise photography by James Lipman)