Lancia Stratos "The Duck"

Girado and Co 2022 - Allow us to introduce you to ‘The Duck’. Steeped in American road-racing history, this 1976 Lancia Stratos HF has, in recent years, fallen into a sad state of disrepair. Taken with its fascinating provenance and mind-blowing documentation, we acquired the during the summer. And now we’re going to bring you along for the ride as we go about restoring this unique Stratos back to its former glory.

Unusually for a Stratos, its story was forged not on the special stages of the World Rally Championship, but rather on the history-steeped road-racing circuits of the United States of America. Originally built as a Giallo Fly road car with a Bleu interior (hence why it became affectionately known as ‘The Duck’), the car was acquired new by the Oklahoma-based entrepreneur, Ferrari dealer and oil industry heir Anatoly ‘Toly’ Arutunoff.

On a brisk November morning in 1976, Arutunoff arrived at the Lancia factory in Turin to personally collect his new Stratos HF, for which he’d paid the princely sum of 13,542 US dollars. Adorned with the temporary export registration ‘EE 74313’, this car was driven through the night to Cherbourg in Northern France, where it was loaded aboard the S.S. Queen Elizabeth 2 and set sail for New York.

This Lancia was duly converted to Group IV endurance road-racing specification by Automobiles International Incorporated in Oklahoma, which, as our documentation shows, consulted closely with marque specialists in Europe such as University Motors. 

What followed were nine years of competition in the below-two-litre GTU category right across the United States, encompassing all the great American endurance racing classics, from the Daytona 24 Hours and the 12 Hours of Sebring to the Watkins Glen Six Hours and the Road America 500 Miles. Each event was fastidiously documented by Arutunoff – he kept everything. Hand-written set-up notes comprising circuit-specific gear ratios and tyre pressures. Event itineraries. And technical passports. 

Girado and Co 2025 -