When Rally Cars looked awesome

I’m bored. Here are some Lancias.

Nice, preferred the Opel Manta 400’s. I miss my old GTE 🙁

You can’t say that with posting a picture.

Shwing

Launch!

We need a picture of a Stratos.
Pure Motorsport porn.

Mint!

3 litre V6 Mini Metro of course!

Pigface’s Renault 5 FTW!

Two pictures of the four wheel drive Ur quattro. No wheels on the ground in either. Winning!

As Ming hasn’t bothered, I had a plain white Opal Manta and pretended it looked like this 😉

As my first picture appears to have failed (on my computer anyway)

Stratos + air.

This was the 1st ever rally car I saw in action, bout 1975 at a stage halfway down Sutton Bank in the RAC Rally. It was Roger Clark. Never forget that.

Roger Clark by jimmyg352[/url], on Flickr

No wheels on the ground does not make a rally car awesome.

It was dreadful, far happier on its roof than its wheels.

Just need a shovel nose escort too!

Sorry stick on iPad so pictures are tedious.

No Escort RS Cosworth?

Cosworth + air

Unfortunately they had a nasty habit of ending up like this when it all went wrong. Very, very fast bombs.

“Dear God!” 1m 43s

^ classic video

This..

Made me buy one of these..

Had it for 2 years, awesomnez 8)

I’ll never forget going past the Reliant factory in Tamworth and there being a pile of RS200 bodyshells stacked up outside.

Scary to think they were built by the people who built Delboy’s van.

Loving the Stratosphere photos. Another image I’ll never forget is the RAC Rally in Sutton Park when one lost its body after going through the Wyndley watersplash. Looked like the world’s fastest motor gocart.

Carlos Sainz 1998.

Who is saying they don’t look awesome now?

Although-

This was the best, though.

There was one of these bad boys parked/abandoned near my flat for years about 15 years ago, tyres going flat, I was always tempted to put a note under the wiper saying I’d like to buy it but I never did, there are only a few around these days and they sell for silly money for an old Vauxhall.

Not quite rally but… well… sort of

Flasheart and Harry the spider have it the rest are fighting for second place

Anyone got a spare 440k?

Who is saying they don’t look awesome now?

It’s not that they don’t look awesome now.

It’s that they were so distinctive back then. Even with all the rally trimmings, it’s trivial to go “MkII Escort, Manta, Renault 5…” – now, who knows (or cares), they’re all one amorphous mass.

The “delivering a of bag o’ pills and some tabs” stage of the WRC.