BMW M3 Rally Car '88
Prodrive, formed in 1984 by Ian Perry and David Richards, is a living motorsports legend, most famously known for running the Subaru Impreza's that took Petter Solberg, Colin McRae and Richard Burns to their titles. What you didn't know is that this very car first wore the name.
At the end of the 86 season, Group B had been banned following the notoriously horrific accident that killed Sergio Cresto. Follwing this, they secured a deal with BMW France and Rothmans to run the pairing of Bernard Béguin and Jean-Jacques Lenne in the 1987 French Rally Championship, the deal would also include the WRC event, Tour de Corse, which was in fact back then, part of the French Rally Championship. It would be powered by the same engine used in the road car, but modified to produce 275 horsepower and weighed in at 1050kgs.
Although it was built more for circuit racing, where it crushed the touring world of the late 80s and early 90s, it did well enough in rallying, winning famously at the Tour de Cours in 1987, where to this day, no normally aspirated, front engine, RWD car has since won a round of the World Rally Championship.
And a replacement for the
(Standard) 206 WRC.
Peugeot 206 WRC '02
First, a foreword: It genuinely pains us to know that Richard Burns is no longer around anymore. We really do miss him. Badly.
After a 12-year absence from the WRC, French automobile manufactuare Peugeot decided that it was high time for them to return to the most popular form of off road motorsports. The company chose to race their compact 206 model... and made the WRC regulations work to their advantage. The WRC rulebook at the time stated that a vehicle must be at least 4 meters to be eligable, but the commercially-avaliable 206 did not meet this requirement, so Peugeot sold a limited-edition 206GT, one with a longer bumper, to clear this hurdle.
The 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-4 in the racer produced 300 HP, but its biggest innovation was its gearbox. Because the engine was too tight to accomidate both a turbo and AWD, the engineers cleverly placed the gearbox longitudinally behind a now transversely-mounted engine. These engineering complexities led to difficulties for the 206 WRC when it first started, but would also have a performance advantage over it's adviseries once it found it's feet. Because of its short wheelbase and excellent wheelbase, it would prove to be a deadly fast car on all terrains, especially on tarmac. Unfortunately for this season, Richard Burns was outpaced by both Gronholm and Panizzi, thus being unable add to his 10 WRC triumphs and finishing 5th overall in the championship.
Would love to see Toko come with a transcript for this!