THE GIANTS FALL SILENT: LOOKING BACK ON THE WORLD RALLY CAR ERA
After a quarter of a century, the sun has set on one of the most successful formulae in the history of motorsport: the World Rally Cars.
The impact of these machines has been unprecedented, providing the foundation for rallying to enjoy an exponential growth in popularity. There have been peaks and troughs in the World Rally Championship story over the past 25 years, but the series still boasts 10 times the following of Formula E when measured by its live attendances, TV audiences and social media following around the world.
Why World Rally Cars?
In the late 1980s, production-based GroupAmachinery took on the mantle of the most senior rally category after the purpose-built projectiles of Group B were ruled out. The definition of GroupAas a ‘production’class led manufacturers to build exotic homologation specials such as the Lancia Delta Integrale, Ford Escort Cosworth and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution series. The cars became stars in their own right, but the cost of building and selling the required 2500 showroom models was astronomic.
When the world’s economy began to tremble in the early 1990s, the motor manufacturers demanded a cost-effective solution without the need to build fleets of homologation cars. Soon afterwards, Mitsubishi unveiled its Lancer E3 model at the beginning of 1995, featuring the most extreme aerodynamics and engine technology yet homologated, which prompted the other manufacturers to step up their demands for parity.
The death-knell for this brilliant but costly era came later in 1995, when Toyota was found to have engineered a bypass on the turbo restrictor plate for its Celica GT-Four, which granted it an extra 50bhp. This legendary dodge would cost Toyota a 12-month ban from international competition… but even so, the Celica only won a single event in 1995 by using its trick turbo. Clearly this was not the only outfit with something up its sleeve. On the basis that banning everyone would be impractical, a new solution was sought.
Prodrive’s David Lapworth, architect of the iconic Subaru GroupAand WRC cars, recalls: “From what I remember it wasn’t a very long gestation period from GroupA to World Rally Car rules. I think the whole story with Toyota and the situation around GroupAturbochargers and intercoolers and things was getting beyond control.
“It was also clear that the European manufacturers like Peugeot and Ford didn’t feel that they could do homologation ‘specials’, so the whole championship was drifting into a situation where only Mitsubishi, Toyota and Subaru could really commit to building cars. We needed a situation that would allow the other manufacturers to come in with a car based on
