KIMERA EVO37

Scintillating restomod recreates Lancia’s 037 rally icon for the modern era, with help from some of the original WRC cast

- RICHARD LANE

This is the new Kimera Evo37, and on acquaintance I can’t remember another car that possessed quite so much… sass. Even on this 7000-kilometre development car – whose compact cockpit, if I’m being honest, still smells a little gluey and whose chassis is being used to fine-tune the dynamics – the details are delicious and cheeky, yet it’s the form that really takes your breath away. The silhouette is pure apex-predator but also crisp and elegant and the kind of shape that makes you puff your cheeks out involuntarily.

But none of this should come as a surprise. The inspiration for the Evo37 is nothing less than the Pininfarina-styled, mid-engined Group B Lancia 037 of the 1980s. And frankly, it doesn’t get cooler.

Then come the words of Luca Betti, the 43-year-old for whom this machine is essentially an extremely committed lockdown project, and who is on hand during our first go in the Evo37 at the Busca International kart circuit in Piedmont: “We wanted to create the Lancia 037 as though it were built today, with the same passion and the same characteristics.” And clearly the same ability to stop anyone, anywhere, dead in their tracks.

So the Evo37 is another restomod, the template being the last rear-wheel-drive machine to win the World Rally Championship, in the series’ most fearsome era. However, in reality there’s barely any ‘resto’ in here, other than the core bodyshell, which is sourced from an old Beta Montecarlo, just as it was for the 037 rally car. There’s not much ‘mod’, either. We’re mostly dealing with clean-sheet manufacturing, albeit manufacturing that quite closely follows the original 037 playbook.