RE: Pic Of The Week: Peugeot T16 Evo II
Discussion
interloper said:
Its about spectacle rather than outright speed. Group B cars in general, would bounce all over the road and go side ways a whole lot more than modern WRC kit. They were more spectacular to watch if slightly slower through the corners.
Errr yes, when you take into account that stages were often three times longer than they are now so suspension settings often had to provide for ALL surfaces not just one, surfaces were not as sanitised as they are now, tyre choice was limited and pretty basic, remember stages being cancelled because of too much snow in the 1980's?nickfrog said:
Twincam16 said:
Yeah, but think quite how much faster modern equivalents of Group B cars would be if they were built today? Unlimited power, spaceframed monococques with mid-mounted engines mated to four-wheel drive transmission - they could be ballistically fast.
I still think there could be room for a kind of return. The IRC cars are much closer to production cars, whereas the WRCs are more specialised, and yet the spectacle is similar and the WRC only has three manufacturers. Wouldn't it be great if the IRC was made the 'main' championship and the WRC became an 'anything goes' for one-offs built by madmen in sheds?
Yes fair comments. I suppose those ballistically fast cars would also generate quite a few deaths and the current toned-down cars are simply more adapted to the driving environment and allow a better driver survival rate! Saying that the current cars are not proper cars is like saying current F1s are not proper cars compared to a pre-Senna car or a late Turbo car. I am sure someone will shortly state that as they have driven both....I still think there could be room for a kind of return. The IRC cars are much closer to production cars, whereas the WRCs are more specialised, and yet the spectacle is similar and the WRC only has three manufacturers. Wouldn't it be great if the IRC was made the 'main' championship and the WRC became an 'anything goes' for one-offs built by madmen in sheds?
Crash protection technology has also moved on a lot. Consider the crashes that occur in F1 every weekend - any one of those crashes would have killed a driver in the eighties, or at least ended their career. Same goes for rallying crash protection. Robert Kubica is contemplating his return to F1 at the moment. If he'd crashed like that in the '80s, he'd almost certainly be dead.
Twincam16 said:
such as Lancia filling the roll cage of the S4 with nitrous oxide to feed an engine that was already turbocharged and supercharged
Gahhhhh! Why do these hackneyed old chestnuts keep appearing in Rallying threads? It wasn't true at the time and it sure ain't true now! Nitrous oxide just doesn't make sense in a rallying environment. 
interloper said:
Twincam16 said:
such as Lancia filling the roll cage of the S4 with nitrous oxide to feed an engine that was already turbocharged and supercharged
Gahhhhh! Why do these hackneyed old chestnuts keep appearing in Rallying threads? It wasn't true at the time and it sure ain't true now! Nitrous oxide just doesn't make sense in a rallying environment. 
Rumor* has it that the FIA scrapped the Group B era because rallying was attracting far more interest than F1 and Bernie and his FIA entourage wanted to change things around with the obvious view to produce something that makes (more) money.
Henry Toivonen's death in Corsica was a mere coincidence as the inevitable was going to happen one way or another (more spectators lost their lives during the Group B era than drivers as far as I can recall). But for a bizarre reason more and more people were attending the stages standing all the closer to the passing rally cars. If this does not defy logic I do not know what does really...
Henry Toivonen's death in Corsica was a mere coincidence as the inevitable was going to happen one way or another (more spectators lost their lives during the Group B era than drivers as far as I can recall). But for a bizarre reason more and more people were attending the stages standing all the closer to the passing rally cars. If this does not defy logic I do not know what does really...
- I have no evidence of that, is speculation which I am comfortable with.
the maddest of this time was the Lancia S4, i remember seeing the RAC one year when the speed checked all the cars over a same distance, it was from hair pin to hair pin on a special stage, most cars t16, Metro, Rs200, Audi reached about 96 mph on what was a ver short straight, the S4 reached 110mph on the same stretch.
Ive got a t16 road car, power is very peaky and feels very fragile but great fun to drive
Ive got a t16 road car, power is very peaky and feels very fragile but great fun to drive
You have to wonder why Group S was also binned when Group B was cancelled, you'd think that the reduction in power to 300bhp would've been enough without the need to water rallying down as far as Group A. I'd have loved to have seen the Lancia ECV1 & ECV2 in action.
I also read somewhere (could've been the the archives here) that it was only a couple of years before Group A cars were completing stages in the same times as what the Group B cars had been doing previously. Would like to see evidence of that if anyone here has some.
jbforce10 said:
You have to wonder why Group S was also binned when Group B was cancelled, you'd think that the reduction in power to 300bhp would've been enough without the need to water rallying down as far as Group A. I'd have loved to have seen the Lancia ECV1 & ECV2 in action.
I also read somewhere (could've been the the archives here) that it was only a couple of years before Group A cars were completing stages in the same times as what the Group B cars had been doing previously. Would like to see evidence of that if anyone here has some.
Group A Lancia Delta stage times on the Col De Turini were faster than the Delta S4 of group B. I also read somewhere (could've been the the archives here) that it was only a couple of years before Group A cars were completing stages in the same times as what the Group B cars had been doing previously. Would like to see evidence of that if anyone here has some.
As for tubular frames being filled with nitrous oxide, I think they used to pressurise the frames with air, if the pressure dropped over a certain time they knew the frame was fractured and needed attention.
nickfrog said:
Aren't todays (or at least last year's) WRC cars quicker though ? I think it's still an awesome spectacle of skills and danger, but maybe I've lost my rose tinted glasses ?
Erm in a word, no. Group. B cars were savagely powerful in comparison to today's efforts. The Delta s4 and quattro were around 2.4 secs to 60 and 2 - 2.5 times the power.
Twincam16 said:
nickfrog said:
Aren't todays (or at least last year's) WRC cars quicker though ? I think it's still an awesome spectacle of skills and danger, but maybe I've lost my rose tinted glasses ?
Yeah, but think quite how much faster modern equivalents of Group B cars would be if they were built today? Unlimited power, spaceframed monococques with mid-mounted engines mated to four-wheel drive transmission - they could be ballistically fast.I still think there could be room for a kind of return. The IRC cars are much closer to production cars, whereas the WRCs are more specialised, and yet the spectacle is similar and the WRC only has three manufacturers. Wouldn't it be great if the IRC was made the 'main' championship and the WRC became an 'anything goes' for one-offs built by madmen in sheds?
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