“In California you spend most of your life in cars,” Tyler, The Creator contemplates at the start of his latest song/video, WUSYANAME. It’s the third video he’s posted in the run up to his new album, Call Me If You Get Lost, set to debut Friday. And wouldn’t you know, it contains a Lancia Delta HF Integrale.
Now, Tyler’s never attempted to hide his love of cars — not in his music, and certainly not on Instagram. But this latest series of videos has really emphasized his fondness of ’80s and ’90s rally legends in particular. The first one, SIDE STREET, saw him making out with a woman while leaning against the front of a Fiat 131 Abarth — with a mink hat on for an added touch of class. Then LUMBERJACK opened with the rapper flipping through the pages of a vintage Formula 1 photo book, before donning another cool hat.
Tyler’s baby blue Delta is the star of this latest video. In it, we get to see a few picturesque, grainy flyover shots as Tyler cruises to a patisserie in his turbocharged, four-wheel-drive Italian hot hatch, only to get his heart broken. The hat game’s still strong, though.
The particular Delta in this video is one of the later Evoluzione examples, first produced in 1991 and continuing to 1995. The Evo and Evo II are distinguished by their four identically-sized headlights, which include projectors — something the earlier Deltas lacked. The Evo bumpers also ditched the black plastic trim of the earlier iterations.
Mechanically, the Evo cars were slightly more powerful, and sported larger disc brakes as well as an improved suspension, adding to myriad small changes from their predecessors. All this is to say Tyler’s Delta is one of the best to ever leave Lancia’s factory. I have to award props for his wheel choice as well, mimicking the white-painted Speedlines on the original rally cars.
As a fan of Tyler’s music, I was already looking forward to Call Me If You Get Lost and have enjoyed the teasers so far — especially LUMBERJACK, which I’ve had pounding on repeat almost the entire time I’ve been writing this. But the best way to make a good song even better is to sprinkle in some cameo appearances from rally royalty, and fortunately you can always expect Tyler to come through on that front.