Too Fast To Race

fifty years ago the sport of rallying was more for fun than profit drivers mostly owned their own cars and relished the idea of long distance events across Europe it was generally a relaxed and quite gentlemanly affair but not anymore rallying today is an all-action big-budget sport with professional drivers and factory teams from most manufacturers but it was more than a dozen years ago back in the early 80s but the budgets and the actions soared to Heights unheard of before or since this was the era of the Group B rally supercars the group B cars made such an impact that Motorsports firms will never forget them they came about in 1981 and the International Automobile Federation relaxed its previous production car rules and allowed cars built purely for rally competition in essence they were the Formula one cars of the mountain and forest roads the Federation had opened the doors for manufacturers to race the fastest noisiest most spectacular cars ever seen on rallies five years later the doors were slammed shut Group B was banished to the history books the reasons were plain and simple faster and faster cars combined with wilder and crazier crowds meant that in the confines of World Rally Championship competition the group being rocket ships were just too fast to race thankfully there are people who are determined that these cars are not going to become just memories recorded on film or in the pages of books and magazines members of the british-based group b car club are dedicated to keeping them in flat-out action they are out flat-out on any piece of dirt or tarmac which happens to be available on any given weekend thanks to the club owners and enthusiasts for this greatest-ever era of rallying can still enjoy these super cars being driven as they were meant to be driven before the international competition ban came into force battling the elements in often lonely and usually spectacular scenery has always added a romantic an adventurous theme to rallying he just can't be reproduced by modern track racing on closed circuits today rallies are as close as you can get to those incredible city to city events in which cars raced across Europe just after the start of the 20th century for the Mille Miglia which used to raw for a thousand miles around Italy until it was banned when crowd control became impossible and fatalities resulted in 1957 ironically although rallies are generally being staged far away from centers of population crowd enthusiasm during the groupby era became so great that the same problems beset the World Rally Championship there were crowned fatalities and the sport came close to being banned completely only the commitment to cut the performance of the cars by banning Group B saved the sport as we know it even so rallying will never see a return to these relaxed and sporting days when the main aim was to cross Europe at some predetermined average speed there were a few driving tests along the way and then it was time to enjoy yourself at some exotic destination like Monte Carlo not that the sport wasn't demanding enough in the 1950s neither the roads nor the cars were anything like as good as those of today just getting a car from London to Monte Carlo at any kind of speed was an achievement in itself especially when it involved crossing Alpine passes 10,000 feet high with cars whose power which rarely exceeded 60 or 70 horsepower by the 1960s even small cars were getting sport yet and manufacture interest was growing by leaps and bounds rallying was no longer just the domain of the sportscar or the large capacity sports saloon major manufacturers like the British Motor Corporation were viewing rallies as a wait effectively publicized both the stamina and the speed of even their most humble models the legendary mini for example achieved much of its eventual cult status by running rings around bigger and clumsier cars in classic events such as the Monte Carlo Rally typical rally terrain was still very different from that which we know today the long and demanding road sections were still the core of any major event even though many were by now including special stages on mountain climbs or forest roads closed off to regular traffic drivers obviously had to be fast and skilful to keep up high overall averages on public roads often in adverse conditions as well as speed however regularity and reliability plus map reading and navigational skills played an equally important part the current essence of flat-out timed competition in cars prepared purely for that purpose was only just starting to filter through by the time the seventies arrived public road sections were really only included in rallies to link the special stages and to retain the essential character of the sport the co-driver was now there to read pace notes rather than route maps when the face of rallying changed so did the look of the cars involved this was the car that made the biggest leap forward in the entire history of the sport the Lancia Stratos was first seen in 1973 to the absolute amazement of everyone involved in rallying it was truly ten years ahead of its time in both concept and performance to maintain Raelians links with production cars the International Automobile Federation insisted on 400 examples of any competing car being built that they thought was a big enough number to deter anyone from building a car purely for competition it didn't deter Lancia they went ahead and built 400 examples of the Stratos and stood the entire sport on its head the pure rally racers had arrived amazingly the Stratos rally car which went into production bore no resemblance to any previous production or competition model it was based on this highly futuristic concept car which Italian styling and engineering specialists Bertoni had unveiled purely as an attention-grabbing show car in 1972 think of turning such a car into a world championship rally competitor surely took a very special stroke of genius the Stratis concept car had been powered by a Lancia engine but initially the Stratos rally car had little more Lancia content than its badge but only styled and built the car using various components sourced from the giant Fiat Group which owned Lancia and equally is important to the project Ferrari owning this car I would say that out of the show prototype of 1970 he developed in 1971 the real Stratos for lunch the Stratos was planned for the the rally car Oh Blanche for the future and a new engine a new lunch engine also was planned for this car an engine which never came out of lunch so to do to overtake this problem Bertoni in the same time it was 72 73 we was working on the Ferrari Dino 308 so he had plenty of Ferrari engine in his in his works and one day he surprised Atlanta people by showing a Stratos in driving condition and they asked was the engine in that car don't worry I had a Ferrari engine they put the Ferrari engine inside and out of this idea which was an idea just for moving the car Cesare furia negotiated very well with the Ferrari at the time and convinces Ferrari to sell to lunch a few hundred of their Ferrari engine which at the time it was not easy to accept the Ferrari selling their engine even to a company which was part of the Fiat Group so the finally the car the Lancia Stratos was running with the launcher emblem but with the Ferrari engine seen here in official Bertoni library footage the Lancia Stratos is a car of which the design company is justly proud from their purely conceptual vehicle they developed one of the great competition cars of all time a car which won three World Rally championships and which set the standard by which all its competitors were measured with its short wheelbase and wide profile along with the compact and powerful v6 Ferrari Dino engine the Stratos was intended purely and simply for rally competition but if you wanted to buy one for some public roads posing and that was fine by Lancia Management if you wanted one so that you could contest national and international rallies then so much the better the car scored its debut win in the world championship round at San Remo Italy in 1973 and then just kept on winning other manufacturers were forced to raise their game to compete and the Stratus was not totally invincible for most of the mid-70s however few rivals got a look in and even as late as 1980 after Fiat had won another world title with its a bath won 3-1 they still occasionally wheeled out a Stratus to do battle in events which suited its particular characteristics truly the Stratus must be considered as one of the most significant rally cars of all time this neat little car is the Renault r5 turbo a great favourite with members of the group big car club and with many other sporting drivers who believe great things can come in small packages in 1980 Renault was the first rival manufacturer to take a leaf out of the Lancer instruction look for success in rallying and build a special car primarily for competition use ostensibly it was a competition version of the little r5 saloon Renault was selling by the thousand to drivers around the world who enjoyed a small attractive car with nippy performance and economical running the r5 turbo utilized the normal car's engine block and a few other components as starting points in its design but the resemblance the little family car stopped right there the turbo for example had its engine where the rear seats of the standard model were to be found and this engine was turbocharged to put out almost 150 horsepower amount double the output of the standard model finally whereas the standard car was front-wheel drive the r5 turbos engine drove the rear wheels just like all serious competition cars of that time the power-to-weight ratio of the turbo was very high and its acceleration was shattering for such a small car from only a 1400 cc four-cylinder engine it could get from 0 to 100 miles an hour in just 11 seconds no wonder it's so popular with the members of the group become the box-like aerodynamics of the little car get top speed to around 130 miles an hour in standard trim but it's suspected that the more powerful factory rally cars could top 140 handli particularly on narrow and twisting tarmac roads was the car strong point it was almost as wide as it was long and had the pinpoint steering accuracy of a big go-kart the r5 turbo was on the market from 1980 to 1985 and it came in several versions offering different body trim by 1980 the Renault factory was well into its hugely successful Formula One program so the time and the budget spent on the r5 turbos world championship rally involvement was minimal by the company's usual standards even so the r5 Turbo made a real impact on international rallying at the height of the groupby Wars running against the most powerful possible opposition it scored outright wins in the two rallies which mean most to the French the little turbo won the Monte Carlo Rally and took two victories in the Tour de course accepted by all as the toughest tarmac rally on the world championship calendar in 1918 alongside the little Renault came the next giant step in rally car technology a form of the five cylinder turbocharged four-wheel drive Audi Quattro howdy was an old name in the German industry but it was relaunched in the 1970s on a worldwide basis as part of the VW family the company's roots went back to the famous pre-war names of Auto Union and dkw so innovation in technology was nothing new to them these two brands have produced some of the world's most famous racing cars and motorcycles the new Audi however had been launched with some rather mundane family saloons and by the end of the 70s company management had decided that a change of image was needed Vorsprung durch Technik progress through technology was the Audi slogan and the Audi Quattro represented true for strong in the world of rally competition it was a significant to rally car development as the Lancia Stratos had been 7 years earlier rival manufacturers had initially been skeptical about four-wheel drives advantages in rallying thinking it too weighty and too complicated the Quattro soon made believers of them it won the first rally had ever contested the Austrian round of the European Championship only two weeks into the 1981 season then in what was essentially the cars development year Hannah Nicollet One World Championship rounds in both Sweden and Great Britain obviously much of the focus of the 1982 World Championship season was going to be upon the Audi effort even more so because one of their best chances of taking the title was the attractive all woman team of Michele Mouton and Fabrizio pons the dark eyed French woman had already proved herself the equal of any male rivals by winning the Sanremo round of the world championship in 1981 the first ever such victory by a woman Michelle is still the only female to win a World Championship motorsports event of any description other team drivers were flying Finn Hannu Mikkola and on a limited event program the speedy Swede Stig Blomqvist but even before the end of the 1982 season Michelle had outscored these formidable teammates in terms of both wins and places the most serious rivals two Audi's bid for world championship glory we're always going to be the combination of Germany's water role and the well proven Opel Ascona but even he recognized the threat posed by now these new technology was Mangena and annoyed in the Loki's annoy us out i'm fira cuteness Auto cuz making it to computerized and getting this out the ready for any failure Walter was never one of Raelians most flamboyant characters but he was a fearsome and intelligent rival certainly no one overshadowed him in terms of driving skills and he was never a pilot who adopted the win or crash strategy if he knew his car couldn't match the pace of the Audi's in certain conditions then he would gladly settle for whatever points he could get rather than go off the road and get none at all and so it was that by the final World Championship rally of the season on West Africa's Ivory Coast the championship had come down to a straight fight between roll and Michele Mouton thanks to her efforts and those of Nicola and Blomquist the Audi Quattro had already wrapped up the world manufacturer's championship Michelle had scored three outright wins for the team and Nicola and Blomquist had scored one each the question in Africa was whether our D could take her to the individual title that she so richly deserved sadly tragically the answer was no her father was dying from a terminal illness as a season drew to a close and Michelle at times felt like withdrawing from the title battle but it was her father's last wish that she should continue to strive to be Motorsports first ever female world champion so strive she did truly the championship was taken from her grasp in the very final stages rolled roared onto victory as a devastating Rochelle sat by the roadside with the Audi's transmission unbroken on into the 1983 season and the big news was the return of Lancia with a car as formidable as the legendary Stratos a rally version of the Monte Carlo sports saloon code numbered the oh three seven the Lancia rally bald little resemblance to its road-going counterpart the previous season had seen the introduction of Group B but both LD and Opel the seasons champions had elected to continue in the old group for class for more production oriented cars produced in greater numbers Lancia had been the only manufacturer to go straight into the new class which had much more relaxed rules only 200 cars had to be built for Group B as against 400 in grouped for more importantly manufacturers were also permitted to build evolution models of the same car the minimum build limit for these anything-goes machines was just 20 cars it was hardly surprising therefore the company which gave us the Stratos went wholeheartedly for the new concept Lancia treated 1982 more or less as a development year suffering but solving all kinds of problems with both engines and chassis they got their reward in 1983 when new signing Walther raw won three Championship qualifiers while teammate Marco Allen took two more the Group B Lancia rally deservedly gave the company its first manufacturers championship since the glory days of the Stratos in the mid seventies facing ever-growing opposition out he continued to develop the quattro concept making it shorter lighter and more powerful howdy went rallying to promote its quattro concept of four-wheel drive production cars and saw no marketing and sales value in producing specials which have little or no direct relationship to the cars it actually sold to the public power however always seemed to be uppermost in the minds of the German engineers so when they started taking advantage of the Group B rules to build more specialized versions of the production Quattro it was to this engine that they turned first through 1983 and 1984 the power output of our DS 5 cylinder engine went up and up and up originally there was a 350 to 400 horsepower version at the well-proven 10 valve engine with its two valves per cylinder this was more than good enough to power Hannah McCulloch to the world drivers championship in 1983 despite the determined efforts of Lancia drivers Walter Rahl and Marco Alain in mid 1984 came a fire-breathing Evolution version four valves per cylinder more turbo boost advantage of the improved engine breathing and even experiments with water injection to cool and expand the fuel mixture charge there was from 450 to 550 horsepower on tap depending on where the driver positioned the turbo boost control at that time no rally car had developed more power however even with this sort of power available the Quattro engineers realized there was still plenty of work to do the production car still dictated the layout of things like engine positioning and the Quattro had originally been developed from a front-wheel drive car in four-wheel drive configurations the engine was mounted much too far forward in the chassis for optimum handling especially on tight tarmac sections powerful it might be but the Quattro was still rather on the clumsy side and could be hard work for its drivers luckily however the World Rally Championship had by now developed into a series where remote dirt tracks outnumbered true Road stages by about ten to one they suited the high traction capabilities of the Audi and the sideways driving style of sweden's Stig Blomqvist he's been described as driving a four-wheel-drive rally car just to see used to drive the old rear-wheel drive models he keep the rear end hanging way out but with all four wheels sliding rather than just the back one the kwacha allowed him to drive like that putting all its 500 plus horsepower down onto the road at all times result was a double world championship around in 1984 blonde wrist was world champion driver and Audi took the manufacturers title at the time the German blitzkrieg must have looked unstoppable but the Audi blitzkrieg was stoppable this is the car which stopped it the Peugeot 205 t16 the French company had made the decision to contest the World Rally Championship as soon as the Group B regulations were announced they saw it as a way to further promote the capabilities of the already popular 205 GTI Road car and they employed former top rally co-drivers Zhang tot to mastermind the project tot of course has since gone on to even greater things the mid-90s he became the boss of the Ferrari Grand Prix team always a thinker and a planner Jean taught examined the group beam regulations and determined that the way to go with the Peugeot project was to follow the path Renault had mapped out with there are five turbo take the basic front-engined from wheel drive layout and scrapped the engine was moved to the mid car position behind the driver but ahead of the rear axle just like all other successful competition car layouts of modern times to maintain the compact dimensions of the original 205 GTI and so keep an easily recognizable family resemblance the turbocharged engine was mounted transversely the spare wheel of the 205 turbo 16 resides where the engine lived in the original even though the T 16 is short and compact the designers kept the wheelbase as long as possible so that the handling would be accurate and predictable rather than having the nervous characteristics of short wheelbase machines the turbo six teens were all built in a competition shop set up especially for that purpose back in those days Persia was not involved in either Formula One or long-distance sports car racing so it could concentrate all its time and budget on this single program unlike the Renault r5 turbo the rival French Marx rally effort was to be a totally concentrated one this concentration of time budget and effort was to pay huge dividends things didn't go all was 100% right but in general the per show world championship effort of 1985 was one of the most successful rally campaigns of all time the 205 turbo 16 was first seen in 1984 when the audi steamroller seemed ready to flatten all comers but even in its development season became obvious that the little French car had no intention of being flattened the Peugeot was more compact than the Audi it was lighter it was more nimble in the areas where the Audi struggled like on the type tarmac stages and it had four-wheel-drive for optimum traction even while Audi was busy winning double titles in 1984 it was casting nervous glances in the direction of the Peugeot team and sending memos back to the competition's Department of Ingolstadt they read don't stop the development programs just because we're wind howdy were right to be worse because what they didn't know was something that Persia engineers weren't telling anyone the ace that the French team were playing very close to their chest was the fact that their 1985 engine would have a formula 1 type turbocharger that would boost the power output of the little 1,800 cc four-cylinder engine to a minimum of 435 horsepower if necessary that figure could be pumped up to over 500 on maximum turbo food not only was the Pirjo lighter and more maneuverable than the still bulky LD but it also had just about as much horsepower obviously Persia as opposition had suspected that their backs might be against the wall in 1985 but they could have had no idea just how pressed against the brickwork they were going to be however they found out very quickly just one week into the new year Ari Vatanen won the Monte Carlo Rally victory in the event that every French rally team dreams of winning re followed that up with another win in the snows of Sweden then a crash in Portugal followed by a bigger one in Corsica and an even bigger near-fatal one in Argentina which put paid to the Finns title hopes the mantle was taken up by his less erratic fellow countryman Timo Salonen he picked up his first win in Portugal after Vuitton's crash and then added four more in Greece New Zealand Argentina and his native Finland even though there was still the San Remo event left on the calendar Salomon was able to celebrate an emphatic World Championship victory in front of his home fans of course Persia were also Victor's in the manufacturers championship only four years or so after making the decision to contest the series it was in October 1981 that Shawn Todd had announced his retirement from co-driving to take up the appointment of per Joe's director of competitions at the start of 1982 the team revealed its intentions to enter the World Rally Championship for a first full season in 1985 May 1984 2:05 turbo 16 made its world championship danger by August 95 it was world champion such was the pace of development in Group B rallying that the land zero three seven which had won the world manufacturers championship in 1903 was fading out of the picture in 1984 and was really just an also run in 1985 to match the opposition a four-wheel drive car was needed preferably a powerful and compact one like the Peugeot this is what Lancia came up with in the shape of the s4 rally version of their little Delta saloon it was even more advanced than the purr show and used a combination of both super charging and turbo charging to achieve the fullest possible power curve from initial pick up to the highest rpm yes for have the most advanced engine in the series and Lancia was confident that if they had to the power could be boosted to over 600 horsepower actually they never needed Henri Toivonen first outing with the car brought a win on the 1985 RAC rally humbling even the title winning per shows in 1986 the young Finns started as he left off the previous year simply dominating a Monte Carlo Rally this time it was Persia which was getting nervous development in Group B was getting faster and faster toivonen also led the Swedish rally for Lancia but went out with engine problems giving the win to a new Peugeot driver your continent even at this stage it was obvious that there was likely to be a titanic battle for the championship and that most people's money would be on Lancia Toivonen had hit absolutely peak form at exactly the same time that Lancia had come up with what most people felt was the ultimate Group B car but it all ended in tragedy on Thursday May 2nd 1986 Henri Toivonen was in a class of his own of bleeding Corsican rally by a huge margin then the Lancia plunged off the mountain road and down into the trees of TOI Thurmond and his co-driver Sergio Cresto were killed instantly a year to the day the Lancia had lost another star driver Attilio Bettega when he crashed his oh three seven on the same rally as they had a year earlier the whole Lancia team withdrew from the rally on receiving the news challenge the s4 for World Championship honors was to all intents and purposes over and done as we speak this latest in a catalogue of tragic accidents including spectator deaths in Portugal led the International Automobile Federation to say enough is enough truly they felt the cars had become too fast to race not every car in Group B enjoyed success as in any form of motorsport there were those who didn't make it some of them might have if Group B had gone longer but we shall never know cars like this Citroen BX 40 C which appeared in 1986 certainly it had potential before wheel drive and a 430 horsepower engine and Citroen later proved their rally capabilities with wins in the parried a car but the history books will simply show that the three car Citroen team all retired from the Acropolis Rally in 1986 loaded their broken cars and the rest of the year onto the ship back to France and were never seen again the Group B Opel Manta actually did win an event or would have done had not the organisers of the 1982 Mille pieced international in France decided to ban prototypes while the event was actually in progress Henri Toivonen was forced to give his first-place award to a production car and accept a special prize instead a year later the evolution version of the Manta 400 appeared and became a solid and reliable winning performer at national level he could never however cut it with the big boys in the world championship and opal who had taken Walter all to the world Drivers title in 1981 gradually faded from the group being seen have the German team and its General Motors UK counterpart Vauxhall enjoyed the same budgets as howdy Persia and Lancia the story might well have had a happier ending the British attempts to enter the group beat challenge also ended in tears although the Ford rs200 and the Metro 6r4 might well have done a lot better with more development time available as it was these late comers to Group B really only got started as the category was about to be banned the 6r4 was based on the silhouette of the little mg Metro saloon where you'd need a pretty good imagination and an eye for detail to see much of a resemblance the original prototype of the car was actually built without the eye-catching wings and front air dam but it soon became obvious that the 6r4 would be unmanageable at speed without them and they were designed into the specification all 200 cars built for homologation whether the 430 horsepower international class contenders or the 300 horsepower Clubman models were fitted with the wings another very different approach taken by Austin Rover for the 6r4 was in the choice of engine it was decided to use a beefy 3 litre fuel-injected v6 rather than the small turbocharged four-cylinder as favoured by Peugeot Renault and Lancia the theory was that the fuller torque of the bigger unit would make the car more manageable on rally stages than the high revving little turbos Austin Rover was sadly mistaken and gravely underestimated the engineering capabilities the French in the wings were an innovation which worked but the choice of a non turbocharged engine was quite simply a mistake not that the engine was a bad one it had its early teething problems like throwing off cam drive belts but they were easily sorted out in later development in fact the same engine was taken over by twr who used it to develop an endurance sports car racing power unit capable of winning in both World Championship competition and the prestigious EMSA Sports Car Series in America in both cases it was badged as a Jaguar and amazingly he went on to be further developed by twr he was the twin turbo engine which powered the Jaguar xj220 had Group B not been banned it's quite feasible that Austin Rover could have turbocharged the 6r4 engine and turned it into a 600 horsepower plus powerhouse to match the Lancias per shows and Audi's but we shall never know it will be wrong to label the 6r for a failure but it was just not on the scene long enough to be developed certainly it did display many faults in its few international events at the end of 1985 and at the start of the 1986 season but many of these were subsequently ironed out in National Rally series where Group B was allowed to carry on and in rallycross it should also be taken into account that Austin Rover never embarked on a full international world championship program with all the development that comes with that experience finances were always tight at Austin Rover and the available budgets was spent mainly on contesting the 1986 British Open Series and World and European Championship events either in within striking distance of the British Isles the cars finest hour was certainly its international debut on the 1985 RAC rally my Tony pond finished third behind the Lancias of Henri Toivonen and Marco Alain what hopes that must have given Austin Rover for the future less than a year later Group B was finished as an international category but the 6r4 was a continuing threat in British open competition in the hands of drivers like Jimmy McRae the father of current superstar Colin and he's almost as gifted younger brother Alastair Jimmy won the 1986 Ulster Rally while teammate David Llewellyn one that makes international that same year ultimately however they lost out to the more reliable Ford rs200 of Mark Lovell of the two British Group B contenders it's probable for a number of reasons but the Ford rs200 would have gone on to be the more effective firstly its basic design and execution seemed better than the 6r4 especially in the choice of a 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine this unit could put out from 350 horsepower in club men's trim to over 600 for international events the car also proved itself by leading the Acropolis Rally from all of the major teams before retiring with mechanical woes again we shall never know generally however the Ford seemed more reliable more predictable and as fast if not faster than its rival from Austin Rover in the 1986 Shell Oil's British Open Championship for example the young Mark Lovell finished in every one of the six qualifiers to take the time by contrast the more experienced Jimmy McRae his young teammate David Llewellyn finished only six events between them they won around each and Louisville didn't score a single win the speed and consistency of the rs200 brought him a well-deserved title as McRae and Llewellyn fell by the wayside secondly Austin Rover were in constant financial trouble at that time and getting a proper budget to contest the world championship series would have been a problem the team also liked major successes to temp big-time sponsorship ford on the other hand were in a much more stable situation and could point to innumerable rally successes in the 70s when making those all-important sponsor presentations the rs200 did in fact go on to win several European rallycross championships and was very much the car to beat in that short sharp shock version of rallying in fact 10 years after the disappearance of Group B and with the Millennium fast approaching the rs200 is still a front-runner in the rallycross Wars an amusing aside to the 6r4 vs. rs200 confrontation is where the two cars were built austin rovers competition department simply ran and developed the cars initial design and construction was farmed out to Williams Perron pre-engineering Ford on the other hand designed and built the prototype rs200 models and further developed and built the factory team cars construction of the 200 Clubman races necessary to get the group beat homologation was contracted out to reliant engineering in Tamworth the same company that build the famed or notorious Reliant Robin three wheelers that's a fact which will probably change a lot of people's opinion about one of Britain's more unusual cars the e Reliant Robin that is not before da rest 200 the final opinion of most experts on the rs200 is that had the class continued it could have been a real contender in Group B certainly the Ford was a strongly built car as these crash test shots graphically demonstrate notice how the driver and co-drivers area remains intact as the front end crumples and here's even more graphic proof of the structural integrity of the rs200 chassis those first Rs 200 models were all sturdily built and even the car which led the Acropolis Rally in the hands of Sweden's fighter pilot turned rally driver caligra and L was reckoned to be underpowered and overweight the competition debut of the rs200 was on the British championship Lindisfarne rally at the end of 1985 and the car won the event at the time it was little more than a road car version weighing in at 1,400 kilograms and having but 400 horsepower contrast that with the 1000 kilograms and 500 horsepower of the Lancer s4 which Toivonen took to victory in the RAC rally just a month later the educated opinion on the rs200 is that it would have been a genuine title contender have the company stayed around long enough to enter the lighter more powerful evolution version which was under development when the poor out came out II who joined Ford in an early withdrawal from Group B had already debuted the final evolution of their car in 1985 and what a coward the quattro s1 sport was an aggressive looking beast with huge wings and more horsepower than anyone else in the championship over 600 horsepower affiliates be on tap and even Walter Rauff felt that he was probably too much considering that he beat the Persia's at the San Remo rally in 1985 his opinion should be respected but in tepees to bait him out or mean think little too long so take a trip on board with him if you doubt his opinions a trip that's also likely to convince you the Ford and Audi were quite right to withdraw from rallies until something was done about crowd control severe enough of this popular range put on lipstick civic leagues because gets it directs Percy panting Percy for the two battling speeders the links plus Ian and great super things safety driving a group B car was an emotional and physical experience that inevitably took its toll on the drivers coping with the noise the intense cockpit heat and the sheer unadulterated stress of driving to the absolute limit on loose trails through solid walls of apparently crazy spectators took drivers to the very edge of their mental and physical capabilities doctors physiotherapists and even mind relaxing gurus are a key element in every major team the drivers needed all the help they could get it was the same for the service crews these cars needed as much technical attention as Pampered Formula One races the only problem was that often they were miles from the nearest paved road rather than in air-conditioned pit lane garages the helicopter therefore became an essential part of any rally teams inventory least one and often two or three no wonder this whole incredible hype brought out huge crowds even we shall Newton remembers those times as unbelievable even the limits to be able to do what we had to do you know and that people on the road and people wanted to touch me when I was start of the stage I remember forever one guy who opened the door to touch me when the guy was counting three to one just to go on it was difficult but in another way of course I was trying to understand also that it was a normal way for them and we have a chance to have a sport where the people can be so close to the driver it's not like all the other sport where you park around in the rallying people are really part of the game so if I have only one image I think it's a positive picture and nice picture if I have some emotion of course it's a noise of the Quattro I mean - - nobody can forget the noise even today I think we miss this kind of noise we can while the awesome rally supercars were justifiably grabbing all the public attention there was another side to group B that never really got off the ground the category was also intended for sports car racing and Jaguars chief engineer in the mid 80s Jim Randle actually designed the incredible 220 miles per hour xj220 supercars with that in mind I sat down and started thinking what sort of car what 1/2 to design there would be an effective Road car but with a physical modification it could be a race winning car in effectively Group B group B at that time was only rally cars at the wall snowed Group B racing road racing at that time nevertheless it was an interesting category the Jaguar was actually disqualified from the GT class on a minor technicality but no matter it had proved its point and left us with an idea of what group we sports car racing might have looked like a groupie sports car racing ever got off the ground this is another car that would undoubtedly have been involved Ferrari was a perennial rival to Jaguar in long distance sports car events and had already designed and built the 288 GTO to contest the class in fact the 288 GTO was also intended to be Ferraris rally contender probably only on tarmac events but one never knows a rally version of the 308 GT had done well in Corsica and San Remo earlier in the 80s and after all Ferrari are part of the same group as longtime rally supporters Fiat and Lancia would we have ever seen this turbocharged 2.8 litre v8 out on the special stages with Audi per show Ford and the rest of them again who knows but what a great sight to daydream about Ferrari were obviously extremely serious about Group B well they went ahead in 1986 and built four examples of a staggering evolution version of the 288 GTO essentially it was a sports racing car with 650 horsepower from its twin turbo engine no one knows the exact purpose for which Ferrari intended the 288 GTO Evo to be used but a return to LeMond in the GT category is a good bet when Group B was abandoned Ferrari detuned the v8 to a mere 450 horsepower and further developed the 288 GTO seen here into the superb f40 Road car since then racing versions of the f40 using essentially the 288 GTO evolution engine have performed with success in GT sportscar competition here's a rare chance to see a 288 GTO Evoluzione e in racetrack action wherever you find Jack your and Ferrari you'll find Porsche so it was no surprise to see this big three talking about involvement in Group B racing and building suitable cars the Porsche 959 was perhaps the most complete car of the three in Group B terms it was a superb li equipped all most luxurious Road car with four-wheel drive and an only slightly detuned version of the twin cam flat-six engine from the company's dominant L'Amour cars performance was in the 190 mile an hour bracket and over 200 miles an hour for the lighter more powerful competition version there was even a racing version the 961 much lightened and with 640 horsepower apart from a burst tire it cruised home to seventh overall at Lemoine in 1986 and won the GTO class which was the closest equivalent to Group B in that race Porcia chose an unusual arena in which to display the rallying capabilities of the 959 the awesome test of the three week long parry dakar marathon the bulk of which was run across the wastelands of North Africa's Sahara Desert by doing this Porsche sidestepped head-on confrontation with the World Rally supercars they all had a two or three year development advantage by the time the original Porsche concept car on which the 959 was based was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 1983 a Porsche first appeared in the pari Dekker in 1984 there was a three-car team in fact a three litre turbocharged four-wheel-drive cars that were effectively a hybrid of the 911 and the 959 prototype Frenchman rené met you won the event with Grand Prix star jacky ickx six after losing time replacing burnt-out wiring the following year three cars which were closer to the 959 specification were entered with bigger but non turbo engines in the interests of reliability in fact all three retired eeks and fellow Grand Prix driver Jochen mass hit rocks and damaged their cars beyond repair previous winner met G mr. time controls in 1986 the true 959s appeared and this time there were no mistakes met Jay won again with each second what's more even the backup service crew car finished sixth a 200 mile per hour road going supercar a-class winner at l'amour and the winner of the Perry Decker by this reckoning the Porsche 959 must have been the best all round Group B car of them all Peugeot were another company who took their group B cars on the desert trail when the category was banned from international rallying in 1986 the French company were left with a team of cars which had won the World Rally Championship for the past two years and were now left with precious few opportunities to compete the choice for team manager John taht was really an obvious one that time no event in motorsport received more coverage in France than the Perry Decker the whole nation and much more of Europe as well was caught up in the romance the adventure and the dangers of racing from the French capital across Europe and the Sahara to the Atlantic coast city of Dakar in West African Senegal television images of this exotic event were beamed back each evening for three weeks onto prime-time television in France and then out all over the world to win the paradata was a guarantee of huge home market sales in France and a respectable slice of the export market for any French manufacturer using rally stars such as Ari Vatanen who won the event at his first attempt in 1987 again in 1990 Peugeot dominated the event until they scaled down their efforts to move on into international sports car racing and eventually Formula One it was a fitting way to bring down the curtain on one of the greatest team efforts in world rallying history in 1985 howdy had taken that group beat Quattro to another incredible event it was rather shorter than the perry decker but it was equally unique in motor sport rather shorter indeed the winning time was usually around 11 minutes instead of three weeks Pikes Peak is a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado and since the earliest days of motoring drivers have been racing up to the summit via a 12 and 1/2 mile dirt road for four years European Group B teams flock to this American classic and totally dominated the proceedings despite the efforts a very baton and in the Peugeot Walter Rahl was king of the hill many many all right sue Martin in the house of God said on this one cons of each tiga punked in my name this was my Lipton was Medora mid boom that's one singer shorter straws he now thought from our straws and conjugates before at each county only all as beautiful for the media needs we tell em out of this the inside from Dixon appears odd to even type inconspicuous was in was forked mom out of this Thomas this is purely out of album a pistol up three bucks a moment in each building as far as only my stolen demon song you have seen her in Valentino's in however nobody knows the ornament all - from hoops Robertson V toilet out the door via of hidden in Vienna of furnaces or this was equally shown the keeper was my midterm out of but in the final analysis it will always be the rally supercars for which Group B will be remembered cars developed at such a pace that they simply became too fast for the terrain that they compete old cars that truly work too fast to race

Channel: Rafael Vieira

Views: 2,038,693

Rating: 4.8385448 out of 5

Keywords: wrc groupb rally

Id: imXk8u-reUQ

Length: 64min 13sec (3853 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 06 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/Nydusurmainus]

A taste of the madness!

[u/OobleCaboodle]

I have very fond memories of going to watch my first few rallies as a kid. My father has always been a huge rally fan, and when he started taking me along to watch the RAC rally GB, it was right in the peak of Group B. The noise and the power got me thoroughly hooked.

[u/The_Iron_Chef]

At that time the common name fot that group was, appropriately, "The Killer B's". IIRC

[u/OllyDee]

Check out a documentary called "Madness on Wheels" if your interested in Group B rally stuff. It's excellent.

[u/surfjihad]

Audi Quattros were so bad ass back then

[u/herberthunke]

My gearhead buddies put a turbo on a Toyota Starlet along with some other retro-racing kit around '86. We had a blast rampaging on the backroads of Alabama in that Frankencar.