Group B supercars

[Alpina]

Corsica 1986 - Battle of the Group B giants




Austin Rover had entered three cars in Corsica for Pond, Wilson and up and coming French driver Didier Auriol.

Auriol's car was prepared by British preparation comany R.E.D.







Auriol only completed stage 1, the photo says it all!




Pond was somewhat of a tarmac expert, not only that, he had compteted in Corsica four times previously, finishing as high as 3rd overall in 1981. Being seeded at 3 Pond was ahead of Toivonen on the stages, such was the pace of Toivonen and Lancia, they actually caught and passed Pond on some of the longer stages, it was now highly apparent that the normally aspirated 6R4 was no match for the turbo cars.













The Metro was suffering overheating problems on some rallies, looking at these photos, Corsica may have been one of those events.







Malcolm Wilson was making his Corsican debut







All was not going well



Wilson retired on day one with an engine fire, Pond went out on day two with cambelt failure (This turned out to be a weak point on the 6R4).


The factory cars stayed away from the Acropolis and New Zealand rallies. However, a private 6R4 showed up in New Zealand, driven by local driver Tony Teesdale, after delays he finished well down the field, but did record some quick times.




Finland - Three cars entered for Wilson, Eklund and Harri Toivonen (Henri's younger brother). Hopes were high after Wilson won the Mantta 200 Rally a few weeks before, this was a Finnish national rally which was often used as a shakedown for the 1000 Lakes, the win made Wilson the first non-Scandinavian to win a rally on Finnish soil.

Wilson rolled his car on the first leg of the rally but kept going and finished 10th overall, much to the delight of the local spectators as Wilson drove his heavily battered car on the stages, Toivonen was 8th and Eklund 7th, a good solid event for the car considering the previous unreliability problems.

Eklund on the '86 1000 Lakes




The 6R4 had found its feet in the British Rally Championship, winning 3 out of 6 rallies.

David Llewellin and Phil Short on the 1986 Manx Rally, they finished 2nd.



Tony Pond took a break from the WRC to take the win on the Manx, this was his fourth and final win on the event, Pond had made the Manx Rally his own, and also made his home on the Isle of Man.

The pairing of Tony Pond and Rob Arthur on route to a popular Manx win




Sanremo - Wilson at a time control in Pisa




Pond's car was showing signs of a hard rally



Pond at speed in the Italian countryside



Sanremo result - Duez retired on stage 1 with engine failure, Pond retired on stage 32 of 41 after an accident and Wilson brought the third car home in 4th overall, this was however after the exclusion of the three factory Peugeots, as previously mentioned in this thread, the results were eventually excluded from the championship.

[Alpina]

Jimmy McRae ran a 6R4 during 1986, the car was prepared by Dave Richards Autosport (which was later to become known as Prodrive). McRae competed on the British Open Rally Championship and other selected international rallies.

Jimmy McRae and Ian Grindrod on the 1986 Corte Ingles Rally, held on the Spanish island of Las Palmas.




The same pairing on the way to 8th place on the RAC Rally, the cars last appearance on the WRC




It was perhaps fitting, that the highest place 6R4 on its final WRC event was driven by the man who developed the car from day one. Tony Pond took 6th place on the RAC




This was also Pond's last ever international rally, Austin Rover didn't have a car which was suitable for the new Group A rally rules, and Pond had perhaps become slightly disillusioned with the sport.

How we all best remember him, Pond at speed in the 6R4




The 6R4's design lent itself well to advertising, here is the Belga sponsored car which Marc Duez ran in 1986




This is the second shot of Duez in this thread driving a 6R4 without a helmet! During a shakedown for the Condroz Rally in Belgium







Earlier in this thread we saw Didier Auriol retiring in a pool of fluid on the Tour de Corse. Things were going much better for Auriol on the French Rally Championship though, he was battling with Francois Chatriot for the French title, here are some photos from France in 1986

Auriol once described the 6R4 as his favourite ever rally car
















Massive crowds on the Cevennes Rally in Montpellier







The title battle went down to the wire, late November 1986, the cars and drivers arrived at the tenth and final round of the championship, the Var Rally, based in Sainte-Maxime in the south of France. Auriol had a comfortable lead, so it would be a case of taking no risks...


...Of course, whenever things are going your way in life, something comes along to try and snatch them away. Auriol was in real trouble after losing massive amounts of time with this damage to his car



Auriol managed to continue, by the end of the rally he came home in a lowly 9th position, his title rival Chatriot won the rally in convincing style.

The points were revealed for the French rally drivers championship of 1986:

Francois Chatriot 119 points
Didier Auriol 119 points

Auriol won the championship by a tie deciding rule!!!

The 6R4 had won an international rally championship on the very last international rally held in Europe in 1986, a superb end to its rally career


Didier Auriol and Bernard Occelli, they just went from strength to strength after this, winning the French title in 1986, '87 & '88, followed by taking the world rally championship for drivers in 1994




Beyond this, the 6R4 (like all Group B cars) was outlawed from all international rallying, but the 6R4 story didn't stop there, it can still be seen each weekend in the UK, competing (and sometimes still winning!) national rallies, and it is still a crowd favourite, just as it was 25 years ago.

[fart]

Fyndið hvað Roverinn heillar mann lítið, kanski að því að maður sá þannig bíl reglulega í íslenskum röllum. Einhvernvegin meira myth bakvið Audi og Lanca þó ég hafi persónulega alltaf fílap 205T16 best.

[Logi]

Mér finnst líka 205 T16 vera sá eini af þessum sem er virkilega flottur!

Lancian er bara ljót, maður er náttúrulega vanur að sjá Roverinn (og þykir hans kannski ekki eins merkilegur fyrir vikið). Audinn finnst mér bara svona lala.

En djöfulsins svaka græjur voru þetta

[bebecar]

Peugeot bíllinn er líka alveg lygilega laglegur og heilsteypt concept.

Roverinn hefur þó lengi heillað mig og hef ég verið svo heppinn að fá að sitja í á æfingarleið í slíkum bíl á fullu blasti með Sigurði Braga - það var ótrúlegt ævintýri. Hröðunin í þessu á möl er alveg lygileg bensínlykt og hitalykt beint í æð.

Þetta er alveg ótrúlega fínt write up, sennilega það besta hér...

Hafðu þakkir fyrir frumkvæðið Sveinbjörn

[Giz]

Kærar þakkir fyrir þetta Sveinbjörn!

Frábær lesning í alla staði...

G

[Alpina]

Although the 6R4 is always remembered as the great British Group B supercar, there is another car that also comes under that banner.

Ford had been in the rallying wilderness since the demise of the Mark II Escort, they then tried building a RWD car based on the Mark III Escort which was known as the RS 1700T, but this was aborted when it became apparent that 4WD had become a must on the world rally championship.

Ford then hired F1 designer Tony Southgate, he set to and came up with the RS200, which never even tried to look like a road going car! This was an extremely well designed car, double wishbones and twin dampers at each corner meant that it should be unbeatable on rough rallies, it had superior weight distribution to any other mid-engined supercar, which meant it should handle superbly.


An original cutaway drawing of the car




The car was developed in Britain, and the driver who did most of the testing was also British, Malcolm Wilson had burst on the British rallying scene in the late 1970s as a teenage sensation, often challenging the likes of Mikkola, Vatanen and such like, on their then regular British rally championship outings. The RS200 won first time out on the 1985 Lindisfarne Rally, Wilson won after a hard battle with Tony Pond, Wilson then surprised his Ford team by signing to join Pond at Austin Rover!

Despite this off, Malcolm Wilson steered the RS200 to its first win




The car was supposed to be homologated in time for the 1985 RAC Rally, but it was delayed and actually made its first appeaance on round 2 of the 1986 WRC, the Swedish Rally

Stig Blomqvist was a previous seven time winner of the Swedish Rally, off he set in car number 1. By the end of day one, he was in 4th place but a water leak was giving him a problem, he retired on day two with a seized engine




Ford's other driver was also a Swede, Kalle Grundel had made his name driving a VW Golf Gti, taking a number of top 10 finishes on WRC events - Now he had finally got hold of something a little more competitive!

Grundel slowly got used to Group B power to take 3rd overall on the debut WRC event for the RS200




The car was producing about 450bhp in rally trim, but this was just an interim measure, Ford were well down the road with an evolution engine (designed by Brian Hart) which would give closer to 600bhp, Ford were simply testing the car until they got hold of some serious power.


Next event was Portugal, crowd problems were immediately evident...




...then came the accident that many had feared, local driver Joaquim Santos had been officially entered by Ford in a third car. On stage one, when Santos came over a crest flat out, he found spectators in the road, he avoided them, but this put him off line and caused him to spin into the huge crowd at high speed, three spectators were killed and many more were injured.

The aftermath of the horrific accident




Ford did not appear again until round 6, the Acropolis Rally, this would be the most promising event in the RS200s very short career


Kalle Grundel took the lead from stage 11 to 15, Grundel then arived at service, a wheel nut was stripped in the rush and the hub change took so long he was out!




Blomqvist took the lead on stage 17, only to retire immediately, when he put the car off the road, most unlike Stig :fish:







The RS200 offered great access for servicing

[Alpina]

It should be noted that Ford burned out two RS200 practice cars in Greece prior to the Acropolis Rally, far worse was the accident in which Marc Surer hit a tree on the Hessen Rally in Germany, his car burst into flames and his co driver was killed, the accident also ended Surer's F1 career, the team fitted a plumbed in fire extinguishing system just before the Acropolis - Amazingly, back in 1986, this was not mandatory.


Back in the UK, Mark Lovell had ben putting in some solid performances on the British rally championship

Lovell on the Scottish Rally



Lovell famously rolled his RS200 on that Scottish Rally, but he manged to get going again to bring the car home in second place




By the final British round, Lovell was in contention to take the title. Once McRae's 6R4 had expired, Lovell was able to stroke it home in 3rd place to become 1986 British Rally Champion, he did so without winning a single round, I can't ever remember another driver doing that.




The RS200 was also able to collect another national rally championship, Robert Droogmans dominated the Belgian rally championship, he won seven out of nine rounds to take the title













Ford were to make their final WRC appearance with the RS200 on the RAC rally, three cars were officially entered for Blomqvist, Grundel and Lovell

Lovell was out on stage 20 with a fire, Blomqvist followed him on stage 26 with a turbo failure


It was left to Grundel to salvage a decent result, this puncture early on didn't help







In the end, Grundel finished 5th overall, behind the dominant Peugeot and Lancia teams, but in front of a string of 6R4s




Perhaps if evolution Group B cars not been banned immediately after Toivonen's accident Corsica, maybe Ford would have fared much better and even taken on the French and Italian super teams. But this was the end of the RS200s rallying career.

[-Siggi-]

Þetta eru magnaðar greinar.

It should be noted that Ford burned out two RS200 practice cars in Greece prior to the Acropolis Rally, far worse was the accident in which Marc Surer hit a tree on the Hessen Rally in Germany, his car burst into flames and his co driver was killed, the accident also ended Surer's F1 career, the team fitted a plumbed in fire extinguishing system just before the Acropolis - Amazingly, back in 1986, this was not mandatory.

Þetta crash er hér. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xokJEbfsDe0&feature=related

[Alpina]

Hérna er sýnt frá slysinu sem Henry Toivonen og Sergio dóu í