Ford Rs200

[brammy777]

hahaha a pikes peaks tagora

 

Group B was a new division of rally cars created soon after Group N and A.

The rules were as followed.

The car manufacturers had to choose a model of car which had at least 200 units a year produced, but then the 'evolved' version of said car had to be homologated, i.e. 20 versions made for the road.

Group N was cars with little mods.

Group A cars had to have 4 seats and have 5000 models of the same make manufactured in that year. This figure changed alot.

Group B cars could have two seats, and due to low manufacturing numbers, opened the door for more car makes, such as Porsche, who used the 911 and 959.

 

Group B was the most dangerous yes, the death toll in Group B cars was rising at an alarming rate. Not just drivers, but spectators too.

The RS200 crash and that of Henri Toivonen in a Delta S4 spelt the end of Group B.

Henri Toivonen crash was particularly gruesome, the car fell into a ravine and exploded, due to ruptured fuel tanks.

All that was left of the car afterwards was the spaceframe.

[MrRegieRitmo]

Thanks for the info Brammy, was Group B more dangerous because the cars had too much power for their size or were they underdeveloped in order to be ready for the current season or something?

 

What categories of rallying still exist? I know I still catch it on TV sometimes & I've had console games for it so there must be something.

 

Like this for instance, what do you call this? Group what?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-0R8pYpn7c

[M'coli]

Rallying's always dangerous, Group B(wiki page) was banned because the cars had got too fast, too soon. When Group B was conceived in the late 1970s the idea was that it would encourage more manufacturers to build rally versions of their everyday tat by putting bigger engines etc in them and not having to produce a huge number of them - think the Pug 305 V6 prototype was what they were thinking along. Audi asked for the ban on 4WD to be dropped, which was agreed to as the only car in the VAG range with 4WD was the Volkswagen Iltis:

.

 

When the quattro was released, everyone realised that Audi had just brought a gun to a knife fight...

 

What Group B ended up with was space-framed racing cars for the forests with large amounts of magnesium parts (read: flammable metal!) and up to 550bhp and fuel tanks under the seats, in the case of the Lancia 038. The fuel in these tanks wasn't available at the pumps, nor regulated against, and had heat content and volatility that made silly power outputs from turbo engines - the Metro 6r4 wasn't turbo and this was one of its drawbacks. The cars were constantly being developed, it was an engineer's dream.

 

I could go on, as it was a fascinating period...

[MrRegieRitmo]

Yes it is very interesting, cheers

[M'coli]

IIRC, there was a classic battle on the 1986 Cyprus rally between the works Dastun pick-ups and the Pug 504 pick-ups - and yes I am being serious, these were rallying pick-up trucks, such was the diversity of Group B!