Group B Rally cars…..

Always had a soft spot for the Opel Ascona 400

Opel Ascona, thats a name i’ve not heard in a long time.

Not sure ths counts, but I loved this one:

There is rumour of a part restored/in pieces 6r4 locally to me. Hope it gets on the road sooner rather than later!

Which one? All of them… Brig them back and stuff the H&S bollox! The vast majority of fans never got hurt.
We’d happily stand on the outside of a curve watching them come and go. Those twigs they put down were more than enough to protect us.

Group B was great. I think this was a group B car.

I know where there’s a real RS200 sitting in storage. I’ve seen the chassis and wheels and piles of boxes full of original bits. Would be worth hundreds of grands in one piece but it’s been sitting there 15 years and I can’t see that changing any time soon.

But if you want to see mental cars going wild in the flesh then the British Rallycross Championship starts on the 19th of March at Croft Circuit. Much less restrictive than WRC and way more power/noise.

The RS200 was my favourite too, but from a results perspective, the Peugeot 205-T16 with Juha Kankennan at the wheel was in a different league.

http://i923.photobucket.com/albums/ad75/mikeharker/UK-TropheeinSWLondon1E.jpg

My dad used too co drive in this once it went into private hands, great little car. Light, quick and noisy, embarrassed quite a few more powerful cars on rallies…

This turned up while I was looking at tents, go figure.
http://rallycarsforsale.net/ad-category/for-sale/%5B/url%5D
So, go scratch that itch.

rwamartin – Member

Group B was great. I think this was a group B car.

Think “Black Beauty” was a Group4 car

zanelad – Member

I sometimes wonder what the cars would be like now if group B had continued.

Group S Rally Cars the forgotten class[/url]
https://rallygroupbshrine.org/group-s/%5B/url%5D

I’m pretty sure Vatanen’s Black Escort was Group 4. The Ascona 400 too. I remember turning up to Motoring News road rally events and finding both Group 4 Escorts and an Ascona 400 on the entry list. Our little Chevette wasn’t going to cut it!

choppersquad – Member

Eskay- your brother’s Renault 5 Turbo must be worth an absolute fortune!
I was looking at some standard road ones the other day and they seemed to be around the £85k mark!

I think it is. He bought it several years ago and I think it has doubled in value.

He has had a love affair with R5’s since we were younger. He had a Gordini Turbo when he was about 19 (try getting insured on that nowadays!!).

About 10 years ago he bought his first mid-engined Turbo II (road going version). He sold that and bought a 6R4 full-on rally spec crazy machine. Probably the fastest acceleration I have ever experienced in a car.

He then sold that and bought the R5 in the link. He has since bought a ‘Le Car’ R5 turbo that he intends to restore.

I have photo’s of all of the cars but I think they are on a back-up drive.

As I said in the previous post, he bought most of them from John Price, I have just had a quick look and he only has this beauty for sale at the moment:

http://www.johnpricerallying.com/for-sale-and-hire

Edit:

I forgot that his first ever car was a R5 TL that he wrote off by driving into a wall when trying to dodge a squirrel!

But if you want to see mental cars going wild in the flesh then the British Rallycross Championship starts on the 19th of March at Croft Circuit. Much less restrictive than WRC and way more power/noise.

Cheers for that, I went years ago (think it was the European round) Brilliant day out!

https://rallygroupbshrine.org/group-s/

Thanks for that link. Very useful website!

If you want to build your own RS200 click here-LINK

Crap website, good kit. The demo car is amazing.

Think “Black Beauty” was a Group4 car

Yes, of course.

“Not RS200! I’ve been in two – they felt like they’d been thrown together in Fords lunch break”

Well they were made by Reliant, of Robin fame.
When the plug was pulled on GpB I can remember rows of unsold road spec 200’s at the Factory in Tamworth.

RS200 engines were only designed to last about 10hrs before they needed a rebuild! For me it was the original Audi Quattro in standard form (pre S1) with Walter Rohrl peddling it in Corsica ( or Portugal.) Henry Toivonen was probably the fastest driver of his era. I heard a tale that Toivonen did a lap at Estoril in a Lancia Delta Integrale in tarmac spec and his time would have put him fourth on the grid for that years F1 race!

Does anybody remember Will Gollops Bi turbo 6R4 rallycross car! Mental quick that was.

I seem to remembe a Ford driven by Malcolm Wilson being gutted by fire in Cardrona . The local fire brigade were in attendance but the Ford team had it covered up and whipped away pretty damn quick.

Thanks all loads of interesting info in the comments. I knew nothing of the Group S cars.

Unfortunately I will almost certainly be at work for the Croft Rallycross or I would have gone, as its just around the corner from me, but a great heads up for others interested.

Croft Calendar

Ref the RS200, where a poster said earlier:

Well they were made by Reliant, of Robin fame.

From another forum, quoting a guy that worked on the RS200 project:

The RS200 was not built by Reliant. It was built by Ford, the project director being Mike Moreton, who had already been the planning genius behind the Sierra RS Cosworth, and who would later go on to do the same job with the Sierra Cosworth 4×4, and the Escort RS Cosworth. He was later head-hunted by Tom Walkinshaw to master-mind the Jaguar XJ220 project.

Ford hired all the staff and fitters, Ford managed the plant. Reliant was not involved.

Reliant, however, provided most of the exterior body panels, which were built in GRP. The chassis, though, was provided by Arch, Ford/JKF did the engines themselves, and FF did the four-wheel-drive transmissions.

ii) The RS200 was not built at Tamworth, and never even went close to a three-wheeler, or the three-wheeler plant. It was built at a factory at Shenstone, which was six miles away. This was an ex-Reliant plant which had previously built engines for the three-wheelers, but which had been totally cleared. Ford found it while casting around in 1985 for somewhere to build the cars, and took up a lease for themselves. Reliant was not involved.

iii) Although the Reliant connection was not close, a number of the assembly staff had previously worked at Reliant, but had recently been maded redundant because Reliant was having a hard time. Some Reliant people also build moulds and mouldings for the body panels.

iv) Ford initiated, managed and completed the programme, with Mike Moreton at the helm. Reliant was never involved in the management of the project.

An ordinary calendar from 1991……

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oh hang on a minute!
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Found in a property I’ve just bought

b r – Member
I saw the Group B’s on the RAC, and then the following year their replacement.

I was so that disappointed the second year, it took another 30 years before I went to see another rally stage

This ^^^^^

I was obsessed with rallying as a kid, all Group B stuff. Posters covered my room, signed stuff. ComputerVisions office was about a mile from my house, so the PR lady used to give me loads of 6R4 stuff. Was gutted at the end of 1986 when it finished. I remember watching the 1987 Monte Carlo – and as I feared it was a massive disappointment.

Never really followed rallying since. It got ok when the Lancia Integrale evolved. But meh…

From this….

To this…

Body language of the spectators sums it up. Having said that… spectator brain failure contributed to its downfall….

Any of you watching WRC currently? If not, have a look, rally Mexico up next, all been turned on it’s head this year, cars to rival Grp B in terms of appearance and much faster, ‘only 380bhp’ but bags of torque, huge aero, mega suspension, more sideways, Mexico is the first gravel round, should be wild.

Does anybody remember Will Gollops Bi turbo 6R4 rallycross car! Mental quick that was.

Whitstable Will Gollop. Saw him drive many times at Lydden Hill and Brands. There was a real buzz around rally cross in the post Group B days. It was great to see these cars being put through their paces.

I haven’t been for quite some time, but I think some of today’s rally cross cars are just as capable. A great day out, if there is a circuit near you.

I remember Will Gollop at Nutts Corner Norn Ireland in his Metro, digging power trenchs in the rallycross track.

core – Member
Any of you watching WRC currently? If not, have a look, rally Mexico up next, all been turned on it’s head this year, cars to rival Grp B in terms of appearance and much faster, ‘only 380bhp’ but bags of torque, huge aero, mega suspension, more sideways, Mexico is the first gravel round, should be wild.

Cheers Core I will watch out for it, its a bit easy to live life in the past. Have you any ideas what the best way to see it is ?

core – Member
Any of you watching WRC currently? If not, have a look, rally Mexico up next, all been turned on it’s head this year, cars to rival Grp B in terms of appearance and much faster, ‘only 380bhp’ but bags of torque, huge aero, mega suspension, more sideways, Mexico is the first gravel round, should be wild.

Sounds interesting. Will check it out.

A good chum of mine works for Ford and he occasionally signs me in for a perv around this lot. It’s splendid. 8)

Cheers Core I will watch out for it, its a bit easy to live life in the past. Have you any ideas what the best way to see it is ?

Red Bull TV does the official coverage, hundreds of YouTube videos per event these days too!

Thanks Legend, Red Bull easy enough to get on the Fire Stick 🙂

S4 for me, please (or non-Group B Alitalia Tratos), but…

I heard a tale that Toivonen did a lap at Estoril in a Lancia Delta Integrale in tarmac spec and his time would have put him fourth on the grid for that years F1 race!

… has got to be an urban myth, hasn’t it?

No it was a fact.

Such was the power of Group B at the end.

http://www.redbull.com/en/motorsports/offroad/stories/1331586320250/henri-toivonen-at-estoril-exploring-the-myth

No it was a fact.

Such was the power of Group B at the end.
F1 cars of that era were qualifying with over 1000bhp – were they getting more than that out of an S4?

Edit – S4 was about 400kg heavier, too – nah, never happened.

Top thread. Added to my faves for detailed consumption later.

A good chum of mine works for Ford and he occasionally signs me in for a perv around this lot. It’s splendid.

maroon coloured Ka?

BT Sport and Channel 5 also doing WRC highlights this year.

A lad i went to school with Andy in Portsmouth dropped a Metro rally car engine into a classic Mini rally car but mid section in the car, not a full on mad Group B, but the engine produced over 280bhp, it took some engineering and he sold it to a guy over in Japan where apparently they love fast Minis.

A friend of his last year reverse engineered a Mk 1 Golf to have an air-cooled Beetle engine in the back, think it was just a case of showing off and showing that it could be done!

If you love Group B, you’ll love Riding Balls of Fire, a film by Helmut Deimel.

100 mins of stage footage and interviews with Stig, Ari, Michelle, Walter, Timo etc.

It features the darker side too with car vs spectator clips and a bit about Toivennon and Crestas’ deaths.

Very good.

RS200 for me

Whilst mechanicing at a Peugoet dealership, I had a short blast in a road going version of a 205 T16. Not stupidly quick as it wasn’t particularly tuned – but a real privilege to drive something so rare

I read somewhere that the works mechanics would often find severed fingers in air vents after the stage – proper grim!!