The 1980s is regarded as the golden era of rallying. It was a time when the craziest cars ever conceived ruled the roost. The topflight of the sport was the Group B competition which allowed manufacturers to push the boundaries to the absolute limit… and often beyond. As they only had to produce 200 road-going homologation cars, they could afford to develop and compete in the maddest creations that ever existed. Legendary Group B specials including the Ford RS200, Audi Sport Quattro S1, Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 and Rover Metro 6R4.
The issue with Group B was that the cars were (arguably) too mad. After a number of fatal crashes, the whole series was banned at the end of 1986 and Group A suddenly became the top tier of competition in the World Rally Championship.
Group A focused more on driver skill and car reliability than bonkers power outputs. But it doesn’t mean that the cars were any less legendary. They were simply a little less lethal to the drivers and spectators. In truth, by the start of the 1990s, Group A cars outperformed their Group B predecessors on just about every stage.
The best thing was, unlike with the more modern WRC rules where you can modify any production car pretty much however you wish, Group A cars had to be based on a run of 5000 (later 2500) homologation specials that shared the same characteristics. This meant that they were basically modified road cars and they’re the reason why performance icons such as the Renault 5 Turbo, Audi Quattro, Lancer Evolution IV and many more actually exist.
Of course, we’re talking about motorsport at the highest-level here. But rallying is, at heart, a community affair. Entry level competition was only bolstered by Group A rules. It’s unlikely that you’d be able to afford a Nissan 240RS or a Porsche 911 SCRS to kick off your driving career, but an Impreza WRX or even an Escort Cosworth? That’s a different story.
If you grew up with access to the more rural areas of the UK (especially near the now defunct North and South Wales Rally Stages) it’s likely that rallying is as much in your blood as if you’d been born in Norway or Finland. It was a sport that brought all manner of car fans together. It still does.
This is why the ‘90s saw many of the most popular rally cars of all time. The Sony PlayStation didn’t hurt their legendary status, either. Especially with games such as Colin McRae Rally (1998). But what cars were the best of the bunch?
Well, with honourable mentions for the Gran Tourismo generation – such as The Subaru Impreza 555, Tommi Makinen Evo and the rather silly (but equally amazing) Suzuki V6 ESCUDO Pikes Peak Special – here’s a few of the most important rally cars to compete during the 1990s…
The name Lancia has always been synonymous with rallying. They are, in fact, the most successful marque ever to hit a rally stage and still hold the record for their six consecutive constructors’ championships between 1987 and 1992.
The Italian manufacturer is always seen as a little exotic here in the UK. Not just because of their iconic Martini livery but because they pulled out of the market and stopped making right-hand-drive cars back in 1994. That’s a story for another day though, one that involves a dubious reputation, Esther Rantzan and rusty cars dating right back to the ‘70s.
What’s most important here is the car that was never meant for rallying but became the most successful rally car in history – the Lancia Delta HF.
Now, although the HF continued to race in Group A until 1993, the competition-spec Deltas were a product of the late ‘80s and the successor to one of the cars that killed Group B – the infamous Lancia Delta S4.
Back in 1986 the S4 ruled supreme. With a mid-mounted twin-charged (turbocharged and supercharged) engine, carbon fibre body, a tubular spaceframe chassis and nearly 500 horsepower it shared only a vague resemblance the standard production Delta. When Finish driver Henri Toivonen and American co-driver Sergio Cresto were involved in a fatal crash at the Tour de Corse in Corsica, it was one of the reasons that directly resulted in the cancelation of the whole Group B competition.
The sudden end of Group B was bad news for most manufacturers. Many didn’t have a suitably homologated production car that would be competitive for 1987. Lancia though, had the Delta HF 4WD – a car with the engine in the front, a turbocharger and, most importantly, four-wheel-drive. It may not have been perfect initially, but it took them to the drivers’ championship for the next three years and the constructors’ championship for six.
So, in essence, the Lancia Delta was never developed specifically for motorsport duties, it was more of a make-do rally car. The irony is that, over four evolutions (the Delta HF 4WD, Delta HF Integrale 8V, Delta HF Integrale 16V and Delta HF Integrale Evo) the Delta won 46 World Championship Rallies and became a motorsport icon.
The Celica GT-Four was the first turbocharged, all-wheel-drive Japanese car entered into the WRC, and it was certainly the first to start bringing home the trophies. But, most famously, the ‘90s ST205 model is the car that got Toyota banned for cheating.
Illegal turbo restrictors aside, the Celica eventually went on to out-class even the legendary Delta HF, helping Toyota take the constructors’ championship away from Lancia in 1993, and then grab another in 1994.
The AWD Celica was another product of the late 1980s with the ST165 and ST185 models coming along in 1986 and 1989 respectively. The Group A competition versions won most of the silverware, too. But perhaps the most iconic model, and possibly the most popular with the public, was the 1994 ST205 which was based on the 6th Generation ‘round headlight’ Celica. The same car that was stripped of its wins in 1997 and saw Toyota banned for a year.
But that doesn’t diminish the legendary status, quite the contrary. With 252bhp (JDM version), the road-going ST205 ‘GT-Four WRC’ remains the most powerful Celica ever produced for public consumption. Each of the 2500 homologation cars even came with all the necessary plumbing to activate the same anti-lag system as the competition cars, along with other motorsport parts such as water injection and an almost ridiculous rear spoiler.
In many ways, the Celica being such a monster on the streets is what created the legend of the competition cars. And that’s what helped make the Celica GT-Four one of the most iconic rally cars of all time.
Can you call yourself a true British petrolhead if you don’t love the Escort RS Cosworth? We think not. What with the road-going versions going for well over £100K nowadays, the whale tail-sporting, 4WD ‘Cossie’ WRC was another one of those ‘90s rally cars that thrived off the popularity of the road car it was based on.
For much of the 1990s the mighty Cosworth was the most stolen car in Britain; that’s how much they were sought-after. With wild looks and even wilder performance for the time, it’s easy to see why. And, even though it didn’t win as many WRC trophies as cars from Lancia, Toyota and Subaru, the WRC version could be the most iconic, and most coveted, Group A rally car of all time.
But then again, there’s always been a deep-rooted love of the Ford Escort in the UK. And, from the day Ford of Europe introduced the very first Escort in 1968, they have always been closely associated with rallying. There’s the Mk1 Mexico, the Mk2 RS2000 and the legendary RS 1700T, to name but a few. But the Escort Cosworth was something entirely different, it was built from the ground up as a rally car and then homologated. It was also an Escort in name alone.
The truth is that the RS Cosworth merely resembles the standard MK5 Escort. In terms of body panels, it only actually used the same roof and doors. This 4WD, turbocharged monster was based on the floor plan and mechanicals of the outgoing Sierra RS Cosworth. And it came with much the same YB engine setup and the all-important 4WD system.
The Escort Cosworth WRC was the ultimate case of ‘win on Sunday sell on Monday’ for Ford. An absolute triumph in terms of road car sales. They initially produced the 2500 cars they needed to go racing but, as these proved so popular with the public, they simply carried on rolling them off the production line. And, even then, they only stopped because of the introduction of new EU drive-by noise regulations.
By 1996 over 7100 were built. So, for more than half of the cars produced, the Escort Cosworth was a homologation special that wasn’t actually needed for homologation. Not just one of the most iconic rally cars of all-time, but one of the most iconic cars, period.
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