Quote:
Originally posted by Lee Janotta
The whole "promotion" angle is where they've missed the target. These idiots want to show off their budgets, rather than actually put the cars they sell to the test!
Rallying is _not_ F1, and there shouldn't be specialized cars out on the stages... The whole sport developed as a torture test for production vehicles. If you want to build prototypes, go on the rally raids.
The fact is that AWD became more popular under Group A rules, but is now no longer being used as a selling point by anyone but Audi and Subaru!
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The people who were showing of there budgets wre Lancia and Toyota in the Group A days. No-one else could get a look in. Group A was Hugely expensive and no one could afford it apart from Lancia and Toyota. Even Ford were struggling to keep up.
If you look at rallying history speciallized cars have competed in rallying sinze the early '70s, stratos anyone. The difference is now rather than building protoype road cars for rallying, increasing costs, they can add performance parts to the rally car only.
As for 4wd road cars, they are making a big comeback. There sre Audi, VW, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Ford (new Focus Cosworth), Skoda, Volvo etc.