It is the ancestor of all the rally Deltas (excluding the S4): the 4WD Group A was born after the FIA's decision to exclude the Group B cars, too dangerous, from the rallies. The Fiat Group was not caught unprepared, having already in the pipeline a Group A project based on the Lancia Delta. The car was equipped with a 2000cc turbocharged engine and all-wheel drive whose construction had been entrusted to Steyr. The car, which debuted in 1987, had a rather short but successful career. This first version was followed by increasingly extreme configurations that brought the Lancia to six years of unchallenged dominance in rallies. The 4WD also had a Group N configuration, a class in which it managed to repeat the successes of Group A.