Friday 26th October 2012

POTW: Pug love

We've had a bit of a thing for Peugeots this week; celebrate the fact with a Group B 205 desktop!

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Twice a Group B WRC winner, of all the mighty rally cars of that era the 205 GTI T16 is perhaps the coolest. All Group B cars have their appeal of course. The Audis set the ball rolling but were no lookers. The Metro 6R4 always looked like a bit of a kit car while the RS200 was awesome but had no relation to anything you could actually buy; ditto the more exotic Lancias.

The T16, doing what it did best of all

But in the 205 you had the perfect combination. The rally car looked fabulous; pumped up, hyper aggressive, twitchy and - of course - a winner. But the fact you could buy something representative that, if not quite as ludicrous, remains among the most exciting real-world performance cars ever made and a definitive hot hatch seals it. A winning competition car, paired with a class leading road equivalent you didn't have to be a Bollinger-swilling, red braces wearing Yuppie to afford? How Peugeot must look back on those days with bittersweet nostalgia. And how, one wonders, Citroen has completely failed to capitalise on the Loeb effect to forge a world-beating line of hot hatches. How their rivals at Renaultsport must laugh.

Anyway. That's a story for another time. For now here's this week's desktop delight - a study in controlled aggression and, we reckon, the best looking Group B car ever made. As a bonus we've stumbled across some video-based fromage in the form of an Abba-scored homage to the car in action. Well, who can resist.

Traditional (4:3)
Computer widescreen (16:10)
TV widescreen (16:9)
Portrait (smartphone, etc)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Corkys]

My favorite Rally car

[robinandcamera]

Best POTW ever!

Any chance of getting some other group B legends shot in the same format?

[simonigrale]

Come on !!! I want to hear back fires and wastegates not ABBA !!!!!!!!

[PascalBuyens]

I think the 405 looks cooler

[petrolsniffer]

Turned thier fortunes around without it I doubt peugeot would of survived.

[wotnot]

simonigrale said:

Come on !!! I want to hear back fires and wastegates not ABBA !!!!!!!!

+1 Great video - shame about the soundtrack!

[sjabrown]

A 205 T16 road car is top of the list of cars I want to own. Was sad enough to work out the other week that the money I've spent rallying over the past 5 years would just about have one bought.

[soad]

robinandcamera said:

Best POTW ever!

Aye, it's Car Porn!

[Stu R]

[Contigo]

Noddy Car Porn!

[Leins]

Lovely, but trailing beind the 037 as my favourite Group B car

BTW, this website lists all, and pictures most, of the Group B cars. Some surprising ones in there that people mightn't remember: http://www.groupbrally.com/index.shtml

[TheTurbonator]

I had a Scaletrix set as a kid with the Pug and the Metro. The Pug was my favourite.

[David1976]

Wonderful. From a time when Rally Cars were beasts and the drivers taming them were legends.

[750turbo]

I remember buying the Stripe Kits from the Special Tuning department at Ryton...

We fitted a few on demos, and sold quite a few to customers, £40 at the time.

Christ, I feel old!

[J4CKO]

Nothing against Abba, a wedding staple for many years but ffs, why put it over a video like that !

[Skylinecrazy]

J4CKO said:

Nothing against Abba, a wedding staple for many years but ffs, why put it over a video like that !

I thought it went really well with the video

[RESSE]

sjabrown said:

A 205 T16 road car is top of the list of cars I want to own. Was sad enough to work out the other week that the money I've spent rallying over the past 5 years would just about have one bought.

£70,000 will buy this one (1984 version with 9,500kms (not warrantied)):















PS Car isn't mine and I have no relationship/commercial interest with the seller.

EFA see Guy's post below.

Edited by RESSE on Friday 26th October 15:13

[anonymous-user]

Drove past this one for sale the other day, very nice too but a long long way out of my budget :-(

http://www.markdonaldson.com/forsale/peugeot-205-t...

[M666 EVO]

Bring back Group B!

But seriously, bring it back. Now.

I still prefer the S4 but all of them were truly awesome machines

[simonigrale]