The Story Behind the New Stratos

Have you ever found yourself receiving financial advice from an adolescent? Even if the kid in question was your own, you'd probably do no more than humor them with a response. But you might take more notice if the value of the investment they had recommended more than doubled inside six months. Especially if that investment produced an asset worth $1 million.

That's exactly what happened to the Stratos prototype that a teenage Chris Hrabalek bought on behalf of his dad. Hrabalek persuaded his father that instead of adding to an increasingly eclectic range of classics that included a Honda S500 and a Saab Sonett III, he should concentrate on acquiring additional Stratos coupes to accompany the single car he already had.

"My dad thought it was funny that a 14-year-old was telling him what made sense to collect from a 'strategic' and 'investment' point of view, and gave me the authority to sell the cars that he had and buy these Stratos that we apparently needed," explains Hrabalek. Some guys, or kids, have all the luck.

From Fan to Owner
The Stratos the Hrabaleks needed was the famous wedge-shaped, Ferrari-powered Lancia supercar, a beautiful machine that slithered its spectacular way to three world rally championships during the '70s. It has long had a small but fervent following, and the Hrabaleks are a good example of just how passionate some collectors became.

"From the second Stratos onwards until the 15th Stratos maybe half a decade later," Chris continues, "these acquisitions were made by me. I remember getting on planes with a mission to view and purchase cars — one of them was to DK Engineering in the U.K., who were quite surprised that a 15-year-old had the power of attorney to complete a business deal worth $315,000-plus."

These buys, along with the dedicated trawling of Italian wreckers' yards for parts and a quest to meet ex-Stratos personnel made quite an authority of Hrabalek, now 33 and a supplier of car design services operating out of London and Berlin. So much so that Bertone, the design house that created this legend in the first place, rang him to ask whether he knew who owned the rights to the Stratos name.

Copyright to Concept
Hrabalek finished that phone call as fast as a guy with his pants on fire and had his dad hire a lawyer to buy the copyright, which amazingly had been allowed to lapse. He was 16 at the time. That maneuver, astonishingly shrewd for one so young, would be the spark that lit a fire under the extraordinary project you see here, a Stratos sensitively updated as an homage to the 1974 original.

It's based on a Ferrari 430 Scuderia and built by Italian design house Pininfarina, the project rumored to have cost in excess of $3.9 million. And so far it has produced this solitary car.

There's talk of 25 cars costing between $660,000 and $786,000 depending on demand.

Having secured the rights to the name it occurred to Hrabalek to sell shares in it in order to fund the development of a new Stratos, each stake costing $157,000 apiece. Takers included a fashion designer, watchmaker, musician and an A-list actor, all Stratos owners, and all keen to maintain anonymity.

Their funding enabled Hrabalek to build a full-size Stratos reinterpretation. Featuring a windshield split by a body-colored center pillar, the car was displayed at the 2005 Geneva Auto Show. No one individual is credited with shaping this latest car, which grew out of proposals from a surprising number of unnamed car designers working under the radar at other car companies. All are lovers of the Lancia classic, but none can reveal that they have been moonlighting on this project.

The Final Piece of the Puzzle
The last person to buy a stake in the name was a man named Michael Stoschek. He had met Hrabalek when he was just 9 years old. Stoschek is the chairman of a family-owned German automotive components maker, so he was certainly a man of considerable means.

That 2005 Stratos concept whipped up a storm of enthusiasm, leading Hrabalek and Stoschek to try and get it produced on a small scale. The two approached a variety of specialists including supercar makers Gumpert, Koenigsegg and Pagani, as well as U.K. rally engineers Prodrive, but in no case did the sums add up. After this, Hrabalek continued solo, though the project retreated to the back burner.

In the meantime, American car enthusiast Jim Glickenhaus had commissioned Italian design house Pininfarina to build him the Ferrari P4/5, an Enzo-based one-off, which gave Hrabalek the idea of developing the Stratos on the same basis. He buttonholed Stoschek at a Stratos rally, and suggested that rather than making a run of cars, the two approach Pininfarina with a view to building just one. Stoschek agreed, and together with his son Max, pursued the project with similar zeal. Pininfarina was commissioned in September 2008.

Despite the early spy shots catching this car at Alfa Romeo's Balocco test track, Lancia and brand owners Fiat Auto have nothing to do with this car. That said, Ferrari has given some measure of approval. Luca di Montezemolo recently took a spin, in addition to legendary Maranello tester Dario Benuzzi, who passed on chassis setup tips after his time behind the wheel. Sadly, Lancia won't be taking the car under its wing as a brand booster.

What's Next?
At one point during the development there were no fewer than three full-size clay model proposals for the car, its gestation mimicking the process that produces mainstream models to an eerie degree. The Stratos became a project "that Pininfarina loved, and hated," admits Stoschek, "because of the perfectionism of myself and my son." Their exacting standards tested the Italian company's skills — and patience — substantially. But all are happy now and the result is a sexy, sensitive and contemporary update of this '70s Lancia, finished to satisfyingly exact standards.

And now that it's been done once, says Pininfarina designer Luca Borgogno, "it will be easy to make more." There's talk of 25 cars costing between $660,000 and $786,000 depending on demand.

Let's hope some generously walleted Stratos lovers think so, because there's no question that this car deserves to exist in more than solitary splendor. Not only is it an excellent tribute to the spectacular original, it also gives the rest of us a slightly better chance of seeing one on the road someday.

Portions of this content have appeared in foreign print media and are reproduced with permission.