Nostalgia and the Rally car…

First up is the absolute COOLEST rally car ever.  It looks evil.  The Lancia Stratos would be the Darth Vader of Rally cars… if it were only black.  The most popular livery would have been the white with green and red for Alitalia…

The year was 1976.

The 1980s would bring “the Killer Bs”.  They were actual cars with too much power…  My favorite car was one of the last Bs to see competition in the WRC.  The cars were part of WRC’s Group B.  The rules were… “whatever”.  And I think the pinnacle of the breed was the ford RS200.  Packing 600+ hp and capable of 0-60s in the low 2 second range…

Shown here in Sweden, the next race would be Portugal.  Drivers and spectators both lost lives when the cars proved too fast for the crowds lining the course.

The year was 1986.

Rise of the Subaru…  The 1990s brought back power levels that were only slightly below the Bs, but they weren’t as fast.  However, the sport grew dramatically and the Subaru WRX stepped into the fray.

Instead of the rear wheel drive cars of the 1970s, the cars of the 1990 were almost all 4wd.  There had been a slight shift away from 4wd after the end of the B era because the drive systems cost weight and power… but they proved faster, and that is what counts.

The year is 1997.

This was also the time when stars like Colin McRae and Richard Burns entered the limelight, and teams would have helicopters looking over the course for issues in front of their cars. Obviously, while there was a budget, it was big… but still just a small fraction of fielding a Formula 1 team.