Four Restomods: Lancia, Volvo, Totem and Kimera Evo37

The future has not quite lived up to its promise. How else can the rising appeal of what we now call the ‘restomod’ be explained? Three semi-classic Italians and a Swedish outsider are gathered beside a dam high in the mountains, each offering intense analogue thrills.

The air is thin at this altitude, so the cars are working hard – as are we. Crave fizzy, richly textured steering? It is all here. Two Lancias, an Alfa Romeo – or perhaps not – and a Volvo. They offer plenty of mechanical clatter and resonance, with little interest in lane-keeping assistance. We may live in a secular age, but these are surely cars as the good Lord intended.

They also have proper credibility. Automobili Amos, the company behind the revived Lancia Delta, is among the leading names in the restomod world. Its founder, Eugenio Amos, is a racing and rally driver as well as a prolific car collector whose taste matches his financial means. Alongside Milanese carrozzeria BorromeoDaSilva, Amos has effectively given the Delta the Singer treatment, using the original Integrale as a donor. More than 1,000 parts have been replaced; the combative three-door bodyshell is hand-formed from aluminium, while the front end, bonnet and rear panels are carbon fibre. At 1,250kg, it is now 90kg lighter than before.

Photography: Lee Brimble

The car I collected earlier in Milan is not among the 20 Delta Futuristas delivered by Automobili Amos. It is the company’s original development car, which has already covered plenty of hard miles and is now accumulating more on its way to our meeting point. There, it will join the Cyan Racing Volvo P1800 GT, the Totem GT and another attempt to make Lancia great again: the Kimera Evo37. It feels as though we have stepped into an alternative universe, or skipped ahead through a time warp.

The outcome is intriguing. In truth, after little sleep, the Delta would not be my preferred transport for a 240km blast up an Italian motorway. The original arrived in 1979 and, even in Amos’s evocative reinterpretation, its driving position and ergonomics remain unapologetically old-fashioned. This particular example also appears to have enjoyed better days. Yet you adapt to it immediately, in a manner that almost never occurs in a polished modern car.

The steering and clutch compete for the title of heaviest control, while the engine lopes at low speed and makes turbo lag seem newly invented everywhere else. Unsurprisingly, I adore it. Amos says it produces comfortably more than 300bhp, although he will not reveal precisely how much more. Presumably that depends on the mood the car wakes up in each morning. I know the feeling.

Mountain roads for restomods

By the time we arrive, I need to lie down and/or have a stiff drink. I have been teetotal for five years. But never mind that: what a location. Gran Paradiso National Park, in the southern Valle d’Aosta, provided the setting for the cliff-edge finale of the original Italian Job. The SS460 twists north from Turin, apparently determined to become more spectacular with every bend. All four cars are compact enough to deal with this fiercely climbing, pasta-like tangle of tarmac. That proves to be a vital quality.

Although they share a philosophy, moving from one to another exposes important distinctions. After the Delta’s tactile brown Alcantara and woven floor mats, the Cyan Racing Volvo feels like an exercise in Scandinavian restraint. We have driven this very car before, albeit in a different state of tune. Cyan, an accomplished race team, originally developed the P1800 in its own image. That approach did not suit the car’s more laid-back backstory, nor did it appeal to prospective owners. This GT consequently has a reduced roll cage, revised engine and suspension tuning, extra sound insulation and more comfortable seats. Its main instruments are sharply styled, the driving position remains decidedly low-set, and the cabin feels businesslike and costly.

The Kimera is awkward to enter, but a delight once you are installed. Unsurprisingly, it has the atmosphere of a rally car: sparse, purposeful and faintly menacing even when stationary. The Totem is an exquisitely made GT. It combines plentiful exposed aluminium, leather and carbon fibre with large cowled Alfa-style gauges and a gorgeous period radio. Its attention to detail brings Pagani to mind, a tribute to its gifted creator, former car designer Riccardo Quaggio. He shaped the design from a £200 piece of Frigo foam.

It is equally resolved externally: a pitch-perfect, predominantly carbon-fibre reworking of a 105-series Alfa Romeo. It is broader in stance and more aggressive-looking, but retains the kind of beauty that Italy alone seems to produce. Quaggio has a youthful demeanour, yet enough steel to have created his company from nothing. He must also have noticed that Alfaholics’ sensational GTA-R has an order book extending far into the next decade.

We have two Totems with us: one uses a 592bhp dry-sump 2.8-litre twin-turbo V6 and the same gearbox fitted to the Ferrari 550 Maranello; the other has an 81kWh battery and electric motor producing 582bhp, plus an integrated limited-slip differential. We also face a problem. The owner of the petrol car permits us only to ride as passengers, while the electric version is available to drive. Regrettably, that is the wrong way round, not least because the EV’s suspension settings are best described as ‘experimental’. Its rear tyres also struggle to cope with 663lb ft of torque, as I discover while laying two thick liquorice-black lines up the valley.

There is much to appreciate, but we cannot know how good the Totem really is until it is complete – and even then, there is the matter of suitability. The EV is smooth and slippery in character; the ICE car is more charismatic even at idle. The V6 sounds terrific and, at around £445,000, it even appears tolerable value. You will, after all, never encounter another one.

20 minutes 4 seconds

Cyan Racing Volvo P1800 GT on the pass

The weather has turned unpleasant by the time I try the Cyan Racing car for size. I have driven it before and remember it being fairly exuberant out of second-gear bends. That was near Silverstone, however, rather than on mountain passes where Michael Caine famously said, “Hang on a minute, lads, I’ve got a great idea” while suspended over a precipice. For the first 10 minutes, restraint is wise. The development work Cyan has carried out since then has made it impressively compliant, and it feels light-years removed from any P1800 I have previously driven.

Volvo built around 45,000 examples between 1961 and 1973, and Cyan can repurpose even the most dilapidated donor. Apart from the donor car’s identity, the only retained parts are the roof pillars, bonnet-release mechanism, windscreen wipers and handbrake lever. What stands before us, then, is effectively a new car: engineered by a top-level racing team and imbued with the spirit of a charismatic classic. The chassis is now high-tensile steel, the body panels are carbon fibre, and an internal roll cage gives it a structural stiffness the original could only have imagined.

It is an exceptionally well-built machine, as it ought to be at roughly £500,000. The engine bay is finished with painstaking care and contains Volvo’s still-current 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, turbocharged to deliver between 350 and 414bhp according to the buyer’s preference, with a 7,700rpm red line. Given that the car weighs only 990kg, that is easily enough to keep proceedings entertaining, although the engine itself sounds somewhat flat. A five-speed manual gearbox comes from Australian specialist Holinger, and there is a limited-slip differential. The gearbox has a pleasingly precise, snickety action that delivers old-school character, provided you do not hurry it. The brakes appeal less.

Eugenio Amos loathes understeer, and his Integrale is the easiest of the four to fling between corners. It is a grenade of a car, a genuine party animal. Perhaps because this example has already been used hard, we feel less need to treat it reverently, and it appears happy to absorb anything we throw at it. Groans and squeaks abound, alongside thrash, clatter and absurd quantities of wastegate chuffing. Part of a restomod’s attraction lies in its bespoke nature and the curation behind it. On that basis, I am not certain I would feel comfortable driving my own Futurista quite so violently, but at least we know it can take it.

Kimera Evo37: a Group B-inspired restomod

That thought becomes even stronger in the Kimera. This is a car for kid gloves rather than driving gloves. Much has changed since I first sampled one a few years ago: founder and former rally driver Luca Betti has moved the business into a magnificent villa in Piedmont. Its ambition has expanded to suit the surroundings. You will receive little change from £700,000 for one, which concentrates the mind when attempting a three-point turn on a misty mountainside. Perhaps we should simply stop and admire the shape. Is there a more satisfying view in motoring than across this car’s upswept tail and rear three-quarter? I do not think so.

The Kimera Evo37 uses a steel monocoque taken, like the original Group B 037’s, from a Beta Montecarlo. New front and rear tubular structures increase rigidity. The suspension consists of forged double wishbones and twin Öhlins dampers at the rear. Brembo provides the braking system. Its body panels use carbon-fibre composite rather than Kevlar.

Its 2.1-litre four-cylinder engine retains the original block but gains new ancillaries from specialist Italtecnica. Like the fearsome mid-1980s Lancia Delta S4 Group B machine, it combines turbocharging and supercharging to provide strong low-rev response and savage top-end thrust. Once the turbo is operating at speed, the supercharger disengages to reduce parasitic losses. This arrangement also brings useful flexibility: select the most aggressive engine-control map and 550bhp is available, an encouraging prospect with a 1,000kg kerb weight.

If it is a tribute act, it covers every essential base. Kimera recruited two-time Lancia World Rally champion Miki Biasion to assist with chassis development, while former Fiat Group motorsport chief Sergio Limone endorsed the project. The engine also carries the stamp of Italian engineering legend Claudio Lombardi. He oversaw Lancia powertrain development in the 1980s alongside team principal Cesare Fiorio, whom he later followed to Ferrari’s F1 team, where he designed the Scuderia’s final V12 engine.

It’s electrifying to drive, in a way no electric car could ever be

Frankly, that heritage is part of what buyers acquire when they pay for one of the 37 Kimeras built, plus an additional seven Martini-liveried cars, each marking a rally victory achieved by the original. The 037 was the final rear-wheel-drive car to win the WRC, in 1983, making it “in many ways the archetypal Italian car, a genius car but one that had certain problems”, says Betti. The sole problem I can identify is that I do not own one. In these hills it is difficult to fully extend this customer-owned Evo37. A few days later, though, when we visit Villa Kimera, I have another opportunity on the long, flowing roads around Cuneo, with sunlight streaking through the trees.

Even the starting procedure is entertaining. Turn the kill switch to ‘on’, pull the ignition toggle to prime the fuel system, then press two small buttons on either side of the centre console. It does not so much start as burst into life, its engine raging behind you. Select first and watch the exposed linkage move as you do. The transmission is the same beautiful Graziano unit used in the Audi R8 and Lamborghini Gallardo. Initially, the Kimera feels raw and surly. It has even more of a competition-car character.

Once under way, however, it quickly fills every sense with feedback, responding precisely and feeling light while also exquisitely, deeply engineered. There is an unmistakable forced-induction character, but the surge is linear and easy to manage. It moves around beneath you, yet remains balanced and completely controlled: a featherweight beside most new cars, but one capable of landing a genuine knockout blow. It’s electrifying to drive, in a way no electric car could ever be.

It is the most convincing car here. It is not merely the best to drive but, crucially for a restomod, the most faithful to its roots, taking the rally-bred 037, reimagining it for the road and then improving it. This is a clearly conceived, carefully executed and tremendously exciting machine: a road-going Group B hooligan for a new generation. Kimera has more in store, and the company appears to be following a Singer-like path. As a way to reconnect with an imagined past, nothing does it better.