Around relation to motorsport governed by the FIA, Group A and Group B referred to 2 sets of regulations for competition vehicles around touring car and rally racing. Class action B wwhen introduced per FIA within 1982 as replacement for each Group 4 (modified grand touring) and Group 5 (touring prototypes) cars.

Class action The referred to production-derived vehicles limited within terms of power, weight, allowed technology & overall numbers. Class action The was aimed at ensuring the heavy total of privately-owned entries around races.

By direct contrast, Class actiin B got pack restrictions on technology, project & a total of cars compulsory for homologation to compete. Weight was unrestricted, high-hi-tech materials were permitted, & there was there is no limit in power. A category was aimed at auto manufacturer by promising unlimited race triumph & a subsequent publicity chance forswearing a require for an existent production model.

Class action B was at a start the super successful construct, by owning several manufacturers joining the premier World Rally Championship, and increased spectator figures. However the dollars & cents of competing quickly rose, and a performance of the cars proved overmuch, consequent around a series of calamitous crashes. Following Class action B was cancelled at a prevent of 1986 & Class action A regulations became a standard for a lot cars until the advent of World Rally Cars in 1997.

In the resulting years Class action B discovered the niche in the European Rallycross Championship, with cars like a MG Metro 6R4 and the Ford RS200 competing when late as 1992. For 1993, a FIA replaced a Class action B system using paradigm that got to become according to existent Class action A cars, however however followed the spirit of Class action B, using moo weight, 4WD, high turbo boost pressure & astounding numbers of power.

Group 2 and Group 4

Until 1983 the two independent classes of rallying were known as Group 2 and Group 4. Major manufacturers competed within Class action Four, which involved a minimum of 400 examples of a competition car. Notable cars of a era involved the Lancia Stratos, Ford Escort and Fiat 131 Abarth.

Inside 1979 a FISA (then the title of the FIA's motorsport regulative section) legalized all wheel drive (AWD). Even then, at a instance it was usually felt that a more weight & complexness of AWD systems would cancel out a performance rewards, so a auto company were nin lament on utilizing it.

This belief was shattered whenever Audi launched the AWD Quattro in 1980. When the recently car was indeed heavily & cumbersome, its levels of off-road grip were staggering: That season a quattro was utilized as an official racer & caused by agency driver Hannu Mikkola. At one particular rally its concerted period for all the stages was nine proceedings quickly than that of the rally winner.

A Quattro was officially entered in the 1980 Janner Rally in Austria and easily won. Audi retain winning throughout 1980 & 1981 seasons, although lack of uniform final result intended that Ford took a driver's title within 1981 by using Ari Vatanen driving a tail-cause Escort. A team's triumph at a 1981 Rallye San Remo was particularly historic: Piloted by Michèle Mouton, it was the number one period the woman won an international rally. Mutton positioned 2nd in the drivers' championship a next month, behind Opel's Walter Röhrl.

1983-1985

Within 1983, The FISA decided to separate the rally cars into deuce classes: Class action A & Class action B. Although the Audi Quattro was however within essence a Class action Four car, it carried Hannu Mikkola to the driver's title inside 1983. Lancia had designed a freshly car to Class action B specifications, however a Lancia 037 still had rear wheel drive and was thus less uniform than a Audi above different shells.

A moo homologation requirements quickly attracted manufacturers to Class action B. Opel replaced their production-derived Ascona with the Class action B Manta 400, and Toyota built a fresh car according to their Celica. Such as a Lancia 037 two cars were rearward cause, however unlike a Lancia it met by using little profits, although Toyota won a 1983 Ivory Coast Rally after hiring desert driving specialist Bjorn Waldegard.

Within 1984, Audi's Stig Blomqvist beat Lancia to the driver's title, although the triumph was bittersweet: Midway through the month Peugeot had joined the rallying scene sustaining its Class action B 205 T16. A T16 too got everthing wheel cause & was little & lightly than a Audi Quattro. At a wheel was a 1981 driver's prizewinning Ari Vatanen, with new Ferrari Formula One team manager Jean Todt overseeing the operation. a crash prevented a T16 from either winning its number 1 rally however the writing was on the wall for Audi.

Despite massive revisions to the Quattro, including the shorter wheelbase, Peugeot dominated the 1985 season. Although non forswearing mishap: Vatanen plunged off a road around Argentina and was gravely injured whenever his seat mountings broke in the following crash.

Although a crash was the sign that Class action B cars got already turn into perilously quickly, a rash of freshly Class action B cars entered the rallying globe inside 1985: Late in a month, Lancia replaced their outclassed 037 by using the Delta S4, which featured both the turbocharger and a supercharger for optimum power output. Ford returned after many years aways by owning a Ford RS200 Citroën attempted to build a Class action B car, however a BX 4TC was too heavily & cumbersome to become successful. Rover created the distinctive Metro 6R4, which featured boxy bodywork & the big spoiler mounted on the front of the car.

1986

A stage was placed for 1986 to be the super exciting year. Defending champion Timo Salonen had the fresh Evolution Two version of Peugeot's T16 using demode Toyota driver, Juha Kankkunen. Audi's fresh Sport Quattro S1 boasted assibilate 600 horsepower (450 kW) & the vast snowplow-such as forepart. Lancia's Delta S4 would exist as in the paws of the Finnish prodigy Henri Toivonen & Markku Alen, and Ford was quick by having its high technology RS200 using Stig Blomquist and Kalle Grundel.

Nonetheless, all about was to last tragically incorrectly on the number one stage of Portuguese Rally near Sintra. Portuguese national champion Joaquim Santos crested a rise to call for a road blocked using spectators crowding to understand a fastest cars are across. Trying to prevent, he wasted control of his RS200 & plunged into a crowd. Thirty-1 population were wounded & foursome were flushed. All a top teams immediately pulled away from the rally & Class action B was laid inside risk.

Disaster struck once agawithin in early Will at a Tour de Corse. Lancia's Henri Toivonen was leading a championship, & when a rally had afoot he was the pace setter. Seven kilometres into a Eighteenth stage, Toivonen's S4 flew off the unguarded edge of the left h& hairpin bend and crashed into a ravine. A car's under-slung fuel tanks immediately ruptured & placed fire to the dry underbrush. Per instance deliverance workers processed it to a remote spot the lot that remained of the car was a blackened frame sustaining the remains of Toivonen & co-driver Sergio Cresto inside.

By a tragical irony, the crash come exactly a year fallowing Lancia driver Attilio Bettega had crashed and died around his 037. When that fatality was largely blamed on the grim Corsican scenery, Toivonen & Cresto's demise inside a survivable crash, combined using a Portugal tragedy, compelled the FISA to work: Class action B cars were immediately banned for 1987. Audi decided to quit rallying completely fallowing Corsica.

A final times of Class action B would likewise become controversial. A Peugeots were disqualified from either a Rally San Remo by a Italian scrutineers when the 'skirts' around a bottom of the car were deemed to become illegal. Peugeot immediately accused a Italians of favouring a Lancias. Their outbreak was strengthened at a next event, a RAC Rally, when a British canvasser passed a Peugeots when legal around monovular trim. Eleven years fallowing a final spherical around United states of america, FISA anuled a symptom of the San Remo Rally. Following a championship title was passed from either Lancia's Markku Alen to Peugeot's Juha Kankkunen.

Disposition

Although 1987 saw a prevent of the Class action B cars on the world stage, it did non disappear from either drive sport. Peugeot adapted their T16 to dog in the Dakar Rally. Ari Vatanen won a event within 1989 and 1990. Improved Peugeot & Audi cars likewise competed in the Pikes Peak Hillclimb in Colorado. Audi utilized their Class action B own experience to respond with the sports racer for the IMSA series in 1990. Ford sold slay their RS200s to personal vendee, by having several existence utilized inside Rallycross events. a Metro 6R4 as well became a frequent sight withwithin Rallycross & the car was likewise entered in British & Irish national championship cases. Porsche's 959 never entered a Globe Rally event, although it did compete in a Middle East championship & swept the Dakar.

Inside recent years a popular Colin McRae Rally computer game series hwhen brought the out Class action B cars to the attention of immature generations by including several of of the children as un-lockable 'bonus cars' to reward progress in the game. [http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/colinmcraerally5/screens.html?page=21 Screenshot]

Group S

Too when a cancellation of Class action B, a tragedies of 1986 too caused a scrapping of Class action B's projected replacement: Class action S.

Class action S system would keep around limited car engine power to 300 horsepower (225 kW). To encourage innovative designs, sole 10 examples of the car would use at times been called upon for homologation, rather than 200. Per period of its cancellation, at least deuce Class action S epitome experienced been built: A Lancia ECV and the Toyota MR2. The cancellation of Class action S angered numerous rally insiders world health organization considered a freshly specification to exist as safer than Class action B & further exciting than Class action A.

A Class action S conception wwhen revived per FIA inside 1997 as the World Rally Car specification which, as of 2005, is however inside utilize. WRC cars come limited to 300 horsepower & involve Twenty examples of the model however, unlike Class action S, come called upon to part certain give up production cars.

Performance

a performance of the purpose-purpose-made Class action B cars was unbelievable: Henri Toivonen drove a Delta S4 around the Portuguese Grand Prix track, Estoril, so quickly that he stand certified good 5 wharehouses from either a pole in the 1986 Grand Prix race. This equivalent car may accelerate from either 0 to 100 kph within crushed rock in simply Ii.Leash seconds.

A sheer & raw power of the Class action B cars brought excitement & danger to rallying in the 1980's. However a ban one cars was inevitable two or three years late when such a heavily total of deaths & injuries especially the deaths of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto.

Cars

Class action B: Audi Quattro S1 Austin Metro 6R4 Citroën BX 4TC Ferrari GTO (also known as a Ferrari 288 GTO Evoluzione) Ford RS200 Lancia 037 Monte Carlo Lancia Delta S4 Mitsubishi Starion 4WD (not homologated before Class action B ended, ran when prototype) Opel Manta 400 Peugeot 205 T16 Porsche 959 Renault 5 Turbo Toyota Celica Twin-Cam Turbo

Class action S: Lancia ECV Toyota MR2

Drivers

Markku Alen Stig Blomqvist John Buffum Juha Kankkunen Hannu Mikkola Michèle Mouton Walter Röhrl Timo Salonen Henri Toivonen Ari Vatanen