GOLDEN OLDIES

The restomod scene has exploded in recent years we gather four supermodels in Italy to show it's not as easy as it looks...

- JASON BARLOW

The future isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. How else do you explain the surge in popularity of what we now know as the ‘restomod’? Three semi-classic Italians and a Swedish interloper sit by a dam at the summit of a mountain, each the purveyor of potent analogue sensation.

The air is thin up here so they’re working hard, but then so are we. Want fizzy, granular steering? You’ve got it. Two Lancias, an Alfa Romeo – or is it? – and a Volvo. They’re big on mechanical rattle and hum, rather less interested in lane assist. We live in a secular world but these are cars as the good Lord surely intended.

They have credibility, too. Automobili Amos, resurrector of the Lancia Delta, is one of the prime movers in the restomod world. Main man Eugenio Amos is a race and rally driver, not to mention a serial car collector with the taste to match his financial firepower. Working with Milanese carrozzeria BorromeoDaSilva, Amos has, for want of a better description, done a Singer on the Delta using the OG Integrale as the donor. In excess of 1,000 components have been replaced, the pugnacious three door body is hand beaten from aluminium, with carbon fibre panels on the nose, bonnet and rear. It now weighs just 1,250kg, 90 fewer than before.

The car I picked up earlier in Milan is not one of the 20 Delta Futuristas Automobili Amos has delivered. It’s the firm’s original development vehicle that’s done the hard yards, and is now doing some more en route to our location. There it will meet the Cyan Racing Volvo P1800 GT, the Totem GT and another ‘make Lancia great again’, the Kimera Evo37. It’s like we’ve entered a parallel dimension, or fast forwarded through a time warp.