They Spent Eight Years Building A Lancia Stratos. Now They Can Finally Drive It

Nathan Kennedy and his father spent eight years turning a bare spaceframe into a bright blue Lancia Stratos replica powered by an Alfa Romeo V6.

Photo by: 9caars

By: Brian Potter

Nov 11, at 3:22am ET

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Nathan Kennedy and his father spent eight years building a Lancia Stratos replica from scratch, starting with nothing more than a bare spaceframe chassis. The pair worked out of a shipping container, turning a teenage idea sparked by an old episode of Top Gear into a fully functional kit car.

The finished machine weighs 950 kilograms, or roughly 2,094 pounds, and runs a mid-mounted 3.0-liter Alfa Romeo Busso V6 sending power to the rear wheels through a limited-slip differential. Kennedy detailed the build in a video posted by the 9caars YouTube channel.

A Decade-Long Project Built From A Bare Chassis

Lancia Stratos Replica

Photo by: 9caars

The idea took root when Kennedy was 13 or 14, after he and his father watched a Top Gear segment where the hosts built a Caterham Seven kit car in a single day and raced it against the Stig. That sparked a simple pitch: build a project car together.

What arrived was not a car so much as a promise of one. "It literally came as just a chassis. Like it is literally just like a big roll cage and that was it," Kennedy said. Every bracket had to be fabricated, drilled, and threaded by hand, often more than once.

Kennedy's father had rallied and built cars before, but according to Kennedy, even he found this project unlike anything he had tackled previously. Progress was slow enough that entire Saturdays went into a single bracket, with parts frequently removed and refitted until they sat right.

It took about eight years of weekend work before the Stratos was running and ready for the road. "There is always more stuff to be done, but yeah, it was probably to driving and running and being out on the road for the first time was like an eight-year process," Kennedy said.

Alfa Romeo Power Stands In For The Original Ferrari V6

The replica's spaceframe chassis is not based on any donor car. It was built as its own structure, engineered to stay as faithful as possible to the original Stratos' proportions and layout. The real Stratos used a Ferrari-sourced V6, an engine Kennedy and his father could not source for their build.

The Alfa Romeo Busso V6 filled that gap instead. "The originals would have had a Ferrari engine in it, but the Alfa V6 is a close second, I suppose, if you cannot get a Ferrari engine," Kennedy said. Rear-wheel drive and a limited-slip differential round out the drivetrain.

Bright blue paint and the car's rally-inspired stance draw attention wherever it goes, Kennedy said, whether from people who recognize the shape or those who simply notice the noise first. Enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike tend to stop and look, he added.

The First Drive Was Years In The Making

The Stratos' first real outing was a trip to Dalkey, with Kennedy's father driving it there and Kennedy driving it home. Both men were nervous, not about scratches, but about whether the car they had spent nearly a decade assembling would simply make it back.

"I have dreamed of this moment for so long and I remember putting the foot down and just being absolutely terrified," Kennedy said. He described the car as unlike anything else he has driven, including quicker machines, because of how light, direct, and analog it feels.

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Selling the car has never been part of the plan, regardless of what anyone might offer. "There is no amount of money I do not think anyone could throw at us that we would sell this car for," Kennedy said, pointing to the time and work the build represents rather than its market value.

Kennedy said he now looks for any excuse to drive it, including a recent evening run through Swords after work. Sharing the car with strangers who stop to admire it, he said, is as much a part of the experience as driving it himself.