Quote:
Originally posted by Lee Janotta
Which is why Tommi Makkinen has all those Group A championships, right? Lancia never had a huge budget, and they stopped meaningful development years before they quit.
Ford and Skoda will make just very short production runs with all-wheel drive, VW has embraced then abandoned it as they feel the market dictates, and Volvo has offered it for years. But aside from Ford and VW, you're looking at a tiny fraction of the automotive market.
And what did the Stratos have most to fear? The nearly stock Escort, of all things!
The rally specials didn't really start until Audi started exploiting the Group B rules, which brought out the prototypes from Lancia, MG, Ford and Peugeot in quick succession.
Your logic is cyclical: You claim that because prototypes currently dominate rallying, that any future rally car must be a prototype!
I maintain that these prototypes serve no purpose, and that extremely high homologation numbers would destroy both the prototypes and the specials, leaving rallying to regular production vehicles such as those seen on rallies like Targa Tasmania.
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Makinan won his championships after Lancia withdrew. Lancias budget was huge, with only Toyota able to match it. Lancia had the Group A 4wd Delta ready before the Group B season had even finished. They were also able to build 5000 new homologation specials each year with updates to the car, unlike Ford, Nissan etc.
Lancia were the first with the rally specials with the Stratos. Rally specials were around well before the 80s.Remember all of the Opels, Fiats, Fords etc. Just look at cars such as the Lotus Talbot, Lotus Cortina etc.
I'm not saying homologation specials are not superb road cars, they are.
But rallying as a sport suffers through homologation, just as touring cars and GT racing has done in the past. Rallying should not be used as a source of performance road cars. Its a sport that needs stable regulations and a fare playing field.
Its true that in the early 90s without the specials there would have been very few truly exciting road cars, but I truly believe this is changing and manufactuers are producing cars that are equal too and even better than the specials.
The Lancer and Subaru no longer need to be produced for rallying. Group N is still around but will soon be replaced by WRC2. However Subaru and Mitsubishi are still producing these cars as there is a demand, particularly for trck days.
Due to this situation Ford produced the Focus RS and are going to produce the Focus Cosworth 4wd which will be more extreme than any production WRX or EVO. Every week more extreme performance cars are being announced and I do not doubt we will see 4wd specials from the Peugeot/Citroen group based on the 307 and new Xsara in the coming years as they will have to compete with Ford etc. in the marketplace.