He built the legend of the Lancia Stratos and won Monte Carlo three times in a row: Sandro Munari has died aged 85.

He was one of the fathers of the Stratos and the first “real” world rally champion: Sandro Munari has passed away.

Known as the “Drago di Cavarzere”, the village where he was born in 1940, Sandro Munari has won most of his titles and trophies with Lancia. It was he who gave Lancia its first laurels and laid the foundations of its rally success story. Like a strange sign of fate, the Italian has just left us, in the same year that his favourite brand returns to WRC after an absence of over thirty years.

First laurels with the Fulvia

He made his debut in 1964, winning the Sardinia Rally and the San Martino di Castrozza Rally, aboard an Alfa Romeo Giulia TI Super for the Jolly Club stable. A team which then accompanied the Lancia adventure all the way to the top. With the Fulvia, he became Italian champion in 1967 and 1969. On the international scene, his first European Championship victory came in 1973.

At the heart of the Stratos project

Next came the Stratos, a revolutionary car in which he was involved as a test driver. Munari can be considered one of the “fathers” of the Stratos, having contributed for many years to its development. The long and sometimes tense negotiations between Lancia and Ferrari for the supply of the Dino's V6 culminated in an agreement that included a clause allowing Sandro Munari to be loaned to Ferrari for the 1972 Targa Florio: a good move, since the dragon won the race with Merzario in the Ferrari 312 P!

Munari debuted the Stratos at the Tour de Corse in 1972, then gave it its first outright victory in September 1973 at the Firestone Rally in Spain, as well as its first international win at the Tour Auto of the same year.

Monaco's other prince

The Stratos finally made it to the World Rally Championship, where Munari won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1975, 1976 and 1977 (after his first victory in 1972 with a Fulvia), the 1974 Sanremo, the Tour of Corsica and the 1976 Rally of Portugal. In 1977, he also won in South Africa and at the San Marino Rally. The rules of entry were not yet as they are today, but it was Sandro Munari who scored the most points and won the first FIA Drivers' Cup. It did not have the status of a world championship, which was not introduced until 1979. With the withdrawal of the Stratos from competition, he switched to a Fiat 131.

After retiring from world rallying, a career crowned by seven world championship victories, he took part in a number of rally-raid competitions until 1984, including the Dakar Rally and the Pharaons Rally, at the wheel of various cars, including the Lamborghini LM 002. He then founded a driving school.

Sandro Munari was 85.