Lancia was founded on 27 November 1906 in Turin by Fiat racing drivers Vincenzo Lancia and Claudio Fogolin. The company developed a reputation for engineering innovation from early in its history and was a participant in motorsport well before the World Rally Championship was formally established. Prior to the WRC era, Lancia claimed the final International Championship for Manufacturers title in 1972 with the Fulvia coupe. In Formula One, the Lancia D50 was a competitive Grand Prix car in the mid-1950s; Alberto Ascari took pole at the 1954 Spanish Grand Prix with the machine, and upon Lancia's withdrawal from Formula One following financial difficulties, the cars and technical resources were handed to Scuderia Ferrari, where the resulting Lancia-Ferrari helped Juan Manuel Fangio win the 1956 championship.
Lancia entered the WRC era with the Stratos, a purpose-built rally weapon designed specifically for competition, and swept the Manufacturers' Championships in 1974, 1975, and 1976. The Stratos was succeeded by the Fiat 131 Abarth for the factory effort in subsequent seasons, but Lancia returned to WRC competition with the rear-wheel-drive 037 in 1983 and claimed the Manufacturers' Championship in that year — the last rear-wheel-drive car to win the title before all-wheel-drive machinery came to dominate.
The Lancia Delta and its evolution, the Delta S4, then defined an era. The Delta Integrale won six consecutive Manufacturers' Championships from 1987 through to 1992, a sequence unequalled in WRC history. Juha Kankkunen and Miki Biasion each won two Drivers' Championships with the Delta, while Markku Alen, Didier Auriol, Sandro Munari, Bernard Darniche, Walter Rohrl, Bjorn Waldegard, and Henri Toivonen also scored multiple WRC victories driving Lancia machinery. The Delta remains the most successful individual model designation in rally history.
Lancia's rally programme was touched by devastating tragedy during the Group B era. Attilio Bettega was killed at the 1985 Tour de Corse while driving a Lancia 037. A year later at the same event, Henri Toivonen — at the time a title favourite — died along with co-driver Sergio Cresto when his Lancia Delta S4 left the road. Toivonen's death and the mounting safety concerns surrounding Group B machinery contributed directly to the FIA's decision to ban Group B cars at the end of the 1986 season.
Lancia contested the 1993 WRC season as their last full campaign, bringing the total championship count to eleven titles. The combination of Fiat's tightening financial control and the lack of a competitive successor to the aging Delta Integrale meant there was no viable path forward as a factory entry, and the programme was wound down after 1993. No other manufacturer has matched Lancia's total of WRC Manufacturers' titles.
Following Fiat's takeover of Lancia in 1969, the brand remained under Fiat and subsequently Stellantis ownership. Lancia's road car presence contracted sharply after 2015, with the Ypsilon supermini as its only product and sales restricted to Italy. From 2024 onward, Stellantis moved to revive the brand with new electric models and a return to international sales markets. Crucially for motorsport, Lancia announced a return to rally competition with the Ypsilon HF Rally4 in 2025, competing in the Italian Rally Championship. The Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale followed, making its debut at the 2026 Monte Carlo Rally in the WRC2 class — Lancia's first appearance in the World Rally Championship in over three decades. In April 2026, the Rally2 car took its first WRC2 class victory at the Croatia Rally, marking the manufacturer's return to the winners' list in a World Rally Championship event for the first time since 1992.