AUDI, SUBARU & TOYOTA IN RALLYING
The road-going Sport Quattro owes it all to Audi’s AWD rallying giants
Our cover cars would never have existed were it not for their rallying counterparts. Adam Towler takes a look at these stars of the stage
‘WHEN AUDI ASKED IF THE RULES COULD BE AMENDED TO INCLUDE FOURWHEEL DRIVE, NO ONE MINDED’
AUDI’S QUATTRO REALLY WAS A paradigm shift in rallying. Before its arrival, physics decreed that rally cars could only harness a certain level of power before more became pointless on loose surfaces; with fourwheel drive, however, there was virtually no limit. But so unlikely did its advantage seem that when Audi quietly asked if the rules could be amended to accept four-wheel drive, no one minded. After all, wasn’t Audi working on some little military vehicle that featured it?
The Quattro made its WRC debut in the Group 4 class at the 1981 Monte Carlo rally. Proving a technologically advanced car in such tough conditions was the ideal way to establish the relatively new Audi brand as a premium marque, and the budget reflected this. Audi signed superstar driver Hannu Mikkola, partnered by Michèle Mouton in a second car.
That first season was one of extremes: when the Quattros worked, their superiority over two-wheel-drive opposition – such as Mk2 Escorts and Talbot Sunbeams – on gravel was verging on the absurd, but there were many retirements too as Audi Sport grappled with new technology. By 1982 the team was on a roll, Mouton taking three wins and just narrowly missing out on the championship to Opel’s Walter Röhrl, with Mikkola in third, although Audi did clinch the manufacturers’ title.
New Group B regulations arrived in ’83, and the Quattro needed to be re-homologated to retain its eligibility. Henceforth, the car was known as the A1 Quattro (the ‘A’ standing for aluminium cylinder block), although this model was short lived, as Audi used the evolution rules to unveil the A2 in May the same year. The A2 had a marginally smaller engine, with capacity down from 2144cc to 2109cc, allowing it to duck out of the ‘over 3-litre’ class once the 1.4 equivalency factor for turbocharged engines had been applied. This made the A2 eligible for a lower permissible minimum weight of 960kg rather than 1100kg, and while Audi never got the car below a ton, every bit helped.
That’s because Audi was locked in a fierce battle with Lancia for the 1983 championship, and the Italians’ featherweight, rear-drive 037 was exposing inherent weaknesses in the Quattro’s package. For a start, the in-line five was mounted longitudinally well in advance of the front axle, with strong understeer the predominant handling characteristic. It was also a big car, ungainly on tight, twisting stages, and all that technology made it very heavy alongside something like an 037, while its reliability – particularly the engine and ancillaries – was also still in doubt. In a classic season, Hannu Mikkola just seized the drivers’ crown, but Lancia pipped Audi to the manufacturers’ title.
By 1984, Audi had the A2 well honed, the car producing up to 400bhp, and items such as Kevlar doors helping to reduce weight. Walter Röhrl joined the team from Lancia, but it was Stig Blomqvist who became drivers’ champion, with Audi also seizing the manufacturers’ crown. Even so, it was obvious the Quattro’s days at the top were numbered: Group B gave manufacturers the chance to create bespoke, mid-engined rally cars that the relatively conventional Quattro was never going to be able to equal, yet Audi’s suits insisted on a continuing link to the firm’s production model.
The rally team’s response was the Sport Quattro, which had 32cm chopped from the wheelbase and was 24cm shorter overall. The engine was still mounted far forwards and the new car’s handling looked wild, as did its performance: a new 20v cylinder head meant power was listed at 450bhp but probably soon exceeded that figure. The Sport Quattro first appeared at 1984’s Tour de Corse and suffered a disastrous debut with an overheating engine. The same round also saw the arrival of Peugeot’s 205 T16, the car that would win the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships in Group B’s final two years, 1985 and 1986.
In July ’85 Audi homologated the Evolution 2 (pictured), with its snowplough front end and roof-high rear wing. While the aerodynamic gains were appreciable, the key element was moving all the radiators to the boot, thereby improving the weight distribution. Röhrl scored a victory in San Remo, and Audi began experimenting with different differentials, as well as adopting the twin-clutch PDK gearbox pioneered by Porsche on its Group C cars. Power was now well on the way to 600bhp, and probably an awful lot more.
But the Quattro never won another Group B rally, Audi abruptly pulling out of the sport after the fatalities at Corsica in 1986. Meanwhile spy photos that appeared of a mid-engined Quattro, worked on in secret much to the later disapproval of the Volkswagen board (see DOA, evo 277), gave a tantalising glimpse of one of motorsport’s great ‘what might have beens’.
SUBARU’S INVOLVEMENT IN RALLYING began in the 1980s with 4WD variants of the quirky Leone, but it wasn’t until 1990, when the firm debuted the Group A version of the Legacy RS, that a credible challenge on the world stage seemed possible. The step change was twofold: not only did the Legacy feature the larger, more powerful, 2-litre turbocharged DOHC ‘EJ’ engine, but the rally car was also designed and developed in Britain, not Japan, by Banbury-based Prodrive. It was a partnership that in time was to write a significant page in the annals of motorsport history.
The car’s pace was obvious from the off, and Prodrive employed two rallying greats in Markku Alén and Ari Vatanen to drive it, but reliability from the Sti-prepared engine was lacking. Meanwhile, Colin Mcrae’s Prodriverun Legacy RS dominated the 1991 British Championship with a Prodrive-built engine, and the point was obvious: soon, Prodrive would take complete control of the works effort.
The Scot progressed to making appearances for the WRC squad in 1992, while securing a second British title, and then moved up to the works team full time in 1993 alongside Vatanen. It was Mcrae who finally delivered that crucial first win at the 1993 Rally of New Zealand, while Prodrive also secured another British Championship, this time with a young English driver by the name of Richard Burns...
The new Impreza, homologated for Group A as the Impreza 555 after the team’s sponsor, effectively took the running gear of the Legacy RS and placed it in a smaller shell with a shorter wheelbase. It would be a more demanding car to drive, but a faster one all the same. Vatanen nearly won on the car’s debut in the ’93 1000 Lakes Rally, and by 1994 both car and team were a formidable force at the top of the WRC.
Mcrae was now partnered by Carlos Sainz, and the Impreza was steadily crafted into arguably the ultimate Group A car. While Sainz couldn’t prevent Toyota’s Didier Auriol from pipping him to the 1994 championship (Mcrae was fourth), in 1995 it was finally Subaru’s year.
Prodrive was at the forefront of developing ‘active’ (electronically controlled) differentials, and the Impreza 555 was effective on any surface, for any rally. In a classic season, it came down to Sainz versus Mcrae, with the Scot triumphing on home soil in the RAC rally.
Mcrae couldn’t repeat the feat in ’96 thanks in part to the emerging threat of Tommi Mäkinen and the Mitsubishi Evo, and then change came for 1997 and the introduction of the World Rally Car rule set, finally breaking the homologation link with road cars and meaning now just the basic shell had to be homologated.
Subaru was an early adopter of the new rules with the Impreza WRC. Styled by Peter Stevens, it used the two-door JDM Impreza as its basis and ran an evolved EJ20 engine that was no longer restricted by links to a road car. These ‘World Car’ Imprezas (known as S3, S4 and S5) enjoyed varying fortunes over the next three seasons. They were fast, but reliability issues, particularly with the engine, prevented Mcrae from securing any more titles. Disgruntled, he left at the end of ’98 to join Ford, and for 1999 Richard Burns joined Subaru’s WRC team alongside Juha Kankkunen. The year got off to a slow start, but by the season’s close the Subarus were right back in contention.
The final year of the classic Impreza shape was 2000, and the Impreza WRC2000 (pictured) may have looked virtually identical but in reality was a completely new car beneath the skin, being lighter and with a lower centre of gravity – achieved at great expense. Burns narrowly lost out to Marcus Grönholm and Peugeot for the 2000 title, but the guts of the WRC2000 were put into a four-door Impreza ‘Bugeye’ for the WRC2001 (S7), and the Englishman clinched his first and sadly only WRC crown at the final 2001 round in Britain.
With Burns moving to Peugeot, for 2002 Subaru fielded Tommi Mäkinen and Petter Solberg in S8 models, and while the former had a poor year, his younger teammate finished runner-up in the title race. The following year he went one better in his ‘Blobeye’ S9, securing Subaru’s final championship title.
Gradually, Citroën and Sébastien Loeb became impossibly powerful, with Ford increasingly its main opposition, particularly in the manufacturers’ championship. Solberg finished runner-up in 2004 and 2005, but by now Subaru was struggling. Burns had been due to return to the team but had fallen ill, while WRC cars had become increasingly bespoke, hitech and big-budget creations.
During 2008 Subaru debuted the new Gebased (hatchback) WRC2008, but at the end of the year withdrew completely from WRC, citing the world economic situation. The days of blue, yellow and gold were over, and it’s unlikely we’ll see their like again.
‘THE PRODRIVE PARTNERSHIP WOULD WRITE A SIGNIFICANT PAGE IN THE ANNALS OF MOTORSPORT HISTORY’