
The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever - Thevet
http://gearpatrol.com/2015/03/30/icon-audi-sport-quattro/
======
Nr7
It was amazing what the drivers did with these Group B monsters in the mid
80s, considering how different of a sport rallying was back then. The cars
were at best several hundreds of horsepowers more powerful than current wrc
cars, with much inferior handling. Most cars, if any, didn't even have power
steering back then.

Also the races were much longer taking place over about 5 days compared to the
3 day events nowadays. One event had about 40-50 special stages back then when
now there are about 15-25 and most of those are just the same stages repeated.
In addition they used to drive both day and night while while getting only a
few hours of sleep per night. I'm sure current rally races are still pretty
grueling events, but those drivers in the 80s must have been superhuman.

I'm still glad that things have changed. If they hadn't cancelled Group B the
fatality count would have just increased. The cars were getting totally out of
hand. Some rumors say that some prototype cars already built for the 87 season
had close to 1000 horsepowers.

~~~
exDM69
These cars were crazy difficult to drive, they had a "locked" four wheel drive
system that is similar to an agricultural tractor so you _have to_ slide the
car around slow corners or the engine stalls (spectacular and noisy, but not
really fast).

They had an unsynchronized H-shifter gearbox that requires double declutching
on downshifts and careful power application given the huge turbo boost. The
driver has to be able to use the left _and_ right foot for braking and be able
to press all three pedals at once momentarily when downshifting under braking
(left foot on the clutch, right foot toe on the brake and blipping the
throttle with the outside of the foot, misleadingly called "heel'n'toe").

Here's a really good clip of Walter Röhrl putting an Audi Quattro through its
paces:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVHj3sHVHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyVHj3sHVHQ)

~~~
onion2k
_These cars were crazy difficult to drive, they had a "locked" four wheel
drive system that is similar to an agricultural tractor so you have to slide
the car around slow corners or the engine stalls (spectacular and noisy, but
not really fast)._

That makes it sound like there are tractors that can do powerslides.

~~~
jessaustin
_Really slow_ powerslides. When operating in mud, turning the front wheels
won't turn the tractor, so many tractors have separate brakes for the left and
right rear wheels. It's kind of amazing how quickly the tractor turns when you
stomp just one of those brakes. The resulting effect is like a powerslide in
that the front of the tractor "falls behind" the rear.

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makeitsuckless
It also nearly killed the sport. Other manufacturers responded with Group B
racing monsters of their own, like the Lancia Delta S4, which were high tech
prototypes only thinly disguised as road cars.

The result was exploding costs, exploding popularity (hundreds thousands of
people lining the stages without the protection of normal circuit racing) and
a series of deadly accidents, eventually leading to the end of the Group B
category and a long decline in the sport's popularity.

~~~
D_Alex
You make a good point (though including "exploding popularity" in the
explanation of how the sport was killed is a bit odd...). But then again, the
point of racing is supposedly to improve the breed. I am pretty sure that the
technologies from rally cars find their way into production cars more readily
than those from say Formula 1. And the Audi Quattro sure kicked off the
technology race.

By the way, a colleague of mine owned an Audi Quattro Sport back in the late
90's. It was a very complex car, many components were unique to this model and
hand-built. Maintenance was difficult, very expensive and very frequent. He
bought a Subaru Impreza WRX "for those 8 months of the year that the Audi
spends in the workshop".

~~~
exDM69
> though including "exploding popularity" in the explanation of how the sport
> was killed is a bit odd...

The issue with rallying is that it used to take place in remote locations with
little or no crowds. There are no safety barriers to protect the audience.
Additionally, the rally audiences got crazed by deadly dangerous activities
like standing in front of the cars until the last second or trying to touch
the cars when they zoomed past (there's a story that a mechanic once found a
severed finger in the side mirrors of a car).

It became impossible for the race organizers to control the crowds and make
the race events somewhat safe. That's why "exploding popularity" was an issue.

Group B was terminated after an accident in 1986 Rally Portugal (?) when a
Ford RS-20 car flew off the track and into the audience with dozens of
fatalities and serious injuries. This was only a few weeks after the
fatalities of driver Henri Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresto in the Rally
of Corsica. Toivonen's last interview concluded with: "these cars are too fast
for the human mind, if you lose concentration, you're dead" [paraphrased from
Finnish], then he closed the car door, drove off and was never seen again.

This is how crazy it was:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYIH7ApCxoM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYIH7ApCxoM)

~~~
ableal
Thanks for this one, and the "heel and toe" explanation in the other comment.

I spent a couple minutes on the Wiki page and this little picture sort of sums
up rally racing - they soberly resisted writing "flying" in the label that
says "Toivonen driving the Manta 400".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Toivonen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Toivonen)
,
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Henri_Toivonen...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Henri_Toivonen_-
_Opel_Manta_400.jpg)

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Yhippa
Thank goodness it did. The things drivers can do with rally cars is amazing.
By far my favorite sport to watch. I'm sad that it didn't really catch on in
the USA. The format is unlike anything that would sell commercially here.

~~~
ifcho
Actually, after the ban of the cars, the manufacturers looked for other races
where they could use their monsters. They took them to Dakar, and to the
famous Pikes Peak hillclimb race in the USA. Peugeot made a very good movie
about it (although it is in a 405T16, which technically never raced group B,
the car is basically a 205 T16 with another body shell) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEuZG37gFdM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEuZG37gFdM)

~~~
darklajid
I like the part at 3:30 where the driver has to drive with one hand to see
anything..

Actually: Comparing that run to this one here [1] from the 'recent' past I'm
even more impressed. Seems like the original video was awfully fast - and on a
dirt road at that time?

1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y20CLumT2Sg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y20CLumT2Sg)

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venomsnake
Just by the title I knew it was Quattro ... such an amazing piece of
engineering of the greatest VW generation ever ... that and Golf I&II gt
redefined fun in cars.

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tobltobs
Some of the success of the Quadro should be attributed to the driver Walter
Röhrl (and of course his copilot). Before he changed to the Audi Team, he did
win lots of rallyes with an Opel Ascona 400, which was not exactly overpowered
compared to the other rallye cars of this time.

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exar0815
The article makes me really sad, but describes the best time in Rally sports.
Group B cars made the rallye an event which had as much popularity as the
formula 1. It was a time when Racing was 50% raw power and 50% talent, and it
is no that it's major racing series, say Group B rally, Group C touring cars
or the formula one gave birth to legends like Rohrl, Bellof or Senna. This is
an attractivity that is completely lost in modern racing, really, with its
small, fuel saving, ecologically correct "cars". Hell, it's racing, not a
children's playground. Thank God there's LMP...

~~~
rodgerd
> This is an attractivity that is completely lost in modern racing, really,
> with its small, fuel saving, ecologically correct "cars". Thank God there's
> LMP...

LMP? You mean the formula where the major constraint is the fuel
characteristics of the engine?

~~~
ericcumbee
Are you referring to the Equivalence of Energy and Equivalence of Technology
regulations?

If so that is a much more sane than regulating performance on the amount of
oxygen the engine can consume. It's also much more relevant to production cars
as well.

To me Balance of Performance is a dirty word, but I am ok with having each
technology balanced so each car has roughly the same amount of energy
available to it.

------
Someone
I know it is going on a tangential, but it surprised me to learn who the Stig
([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_stig](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_stig))
may be named after:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stig_Blomqvist](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stig_Blomqvist)

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brc
While the Quattro has gone up in value, so has every other classic car worth
buying, especially rare homologation specials. So it's not necessarily the
market rediscovering the Quattro (which has never been 'lost') but QE money
chasing hard collectibles.

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georgeecollins
An original Audi Quattro is very hard to find in th US and IMO very
collectible.

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simonebrunozzi
Am I the first to mention how much I loved the Lancia Delta Integrale? Car of
my dreams.

My brother bought a Delta Integrale 1993 EVO in 1997 and kept it for a few
years. I had the pleasure to drive it several times. What a beast.

~~~
Ecio78
You are Italian, you can't not love Lancia Delta Integrale :D

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gkanai
Chris Harris on the Sport Quattro
[https://youtu.be/LDCE4FjVHOU?t=8m1s](https://youtu.be/LDCE4FjVHOU?t=8m1s)

~~~
gkanai
1985 Pikes Peak Audi Quattro S1 Michèle Mouton
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKKfzR7dX-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKKfzR7dX-c)

