Group B Story?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chedda
  • 2 comments
  • 1,423 views
C

Chedda

Messages
7
Recently, I've taken up interest in the WRC. I always liked ti before, but now more than ever. I'm slowly learning about it, but I can't find a single good story about Group B, why the cars were banned, why they are still considered by many to be the last "true rally cars," etc. Does anyone mind giving me some of these details?
 


'Group B
Started in 1979 and ended with a tragic accident involving Toivonen and Cresto in Corsican rally 02.05.1986 where they both were killed. The panic reaction from the FIA banned rally group B.'

All I know :)
 
Chedda
Recently, I've taken up interest in the WRC. I always liked ti before, but now more than ever. I'm slowly learning about it, but I can't find a single good story about Group B, why the cars were banned, why they are still considered by many to be the last "true rally cars," etc. Does anyone mind giving me some of these details?
Click to expand...
Group B rally cars were essentially Formula One racing cars for the rough roads. They were insanely powerful, and were often made of carbon fibre panelling in an effort to reduce weight. They were extraorindary machines, and it was not long before the likes of Audi and Peugeot starts adding massive wings to their cars; MG even recurited Williams - yes, the F1 team - to design and build the odd-looking Metro 6R4. The reason they came about was because of the reduced homologation count of about 200 vehicles; if a team wanted to add an upgrade, it only had to be applied to 10% of the vehicles made.

Eventually, things got out of hand; Lancia driver Henri Toivonen was killed when his Lancia Delta S4 (which controversially had the fuel tank directly under the seats) erupted into a fireball on the Tour de Course. No-one will ever quite know what happened on that day as there were no witnesses, but the effect was that Group B was banned overnight, and the yet-to-be-introduced Group S category with it. Homologation levels were put back up to 5000 road cars and safety became paramount.

If you want more information on the cars themselves, try getting your hands on Reinhard Klein's Rally Cars, which is basically a compendium of the most influential rally cars ever to be made, and easily the best resource of this stuff. It's a little out of date - it was published when Citroen were still running Xsaras in the Group N championship or whatever it was - but it's excellent.
 

Latest Posts

Back