Group B

Putting our Audi 2000 wagon in E.T. wasn't enough to get us to the forefront.

Making a Group B rally car wasn't enough.

People still see us as DKW.

please what can we do to be taken seriously and porsche went yep no problem i'm going to take one of your 80 estates and what they did was highly boost the the turbo 5

But I would say keep down that trail, because, and you probably hear this all the time, but the more things you're exposed to in the car industry, the closer you get to finding your clique.

And for me, that's Group B, but you know, it could be anything.

But I think the more you're exposed to, and the, the more you put yourself out there in these shows, like, like NHRA, and, uh, you know, if you're in America, uh, ARA, American Rally, the more different stuff you go to, you're gonna find things you gravitate towards.

I think that is the key to, to being an enthusiast, really.

What would be something that would be akin to that that would be interesting for some of those people to, like, broaden their spectrum like you're talking about?

Hmm.

I'm thinking Group B.

Yeah.

I like that because often they're more interesting and more strange and innovative than stuff you'd see normally.

And you kind of gravitate at this point in your life, you kind of gravitate toward group B rally cars, right? why, why that out of all had a guest that works on you still gravitate toward

I like Rally because it's frantic.

And Group B, a lot of people like it for the speed, which is understandable.

It was insane back in the day.

But it didn't last.

So it was done in 86.

But you still are like all over it.

And Mitsubishi's own motorsports history specifically says that the car was developed to comply with Group 4 regulations.

What's Group 4, you ask? Well, this is worth explaining because we're going to spend a lot of time talking about Group B later on.

But before Group B became the defining rally category of the 1980s, international rallying used FIA's older category structure.

And at the top end of production-based rallying was Group 4.

These were still cars with a homologated production basis.

A whole new category was on the horizon.

One that would produce some of the most outrageous competition cars ever created.

Group B.

Arguably, the best of the best being Ari Vatanen, who we will hear from later in this podcast.

The two of them, together with Peugeot's Group B-defining 205 T16, could and probably should have won the World Championship.

Joining me today for this very special edition of Spin the Rally Pod is Alan Harriman, a co-driver of similar note himself, but more importantly, Terry's son.

Alan, thank you so much for being with us today.

How big of a deal was it to move to Peugeot? Opel were there, they weren't on the periphery.

You'd have won the Safari in the Ascona in 1983, but...

Group B had arrived and Peugeot were the ones to take on Audi, weren't they? Do you remember much excitement around the time when that move was coming?

Well, with Peugeot, it was...

But the reason I've invited Beattie on is...

Basically, if you think back to the 1986 when the great Henry Toivonen and Sergio Cresto were killed on the Corsica rally driving their Lancia Delta S4, which brought about the more or less instant banning of Group B cars because of their speed.

And lo and behold, we have modern WRC cars that are faster and nobody is doing anything about it.

So without further ado, BT Crawford, welcome to The Backseat Driver.

if they were,

hundreds of people would kill.

But, I mean, the one thing is as well, it's like I said, the modern WRC car is far faster than the ones that they banned, the Group Bs that they banned.

And there's got to come a limit at some point when the car or the driver of the car...

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like, the, the cars today are, like, what Group B was in the '80s.

Like, the cars right now are savage.

I mean, the cars today are way faster than the Group B cars.

Oh, I mean...

And, and here's another, like, r- rally hot take

this is, like, the biggest mistake-

Yeah

We can hear an Audi Quattro in there, but based on what you could see from the bodywork, for example, Ross has called this as a Group 4 Audi Quattro specifically.

So maybe not the more commonly recognized Group B Quattro in either form, S1 or S2.

This is potentially the older Group 4 Quattro, so the first four-wheel drive rally car to really go in and make a mark.

on the World Rally Championship.

If that's to be the case, then that's pretty exciting.

I'm actually happier about that than the Group B Quattro, which we've seen so many times.

I like the kind of slightly quirky and different cars that we get.

For example, you know, getting the older spec of the Impreza Group A rather than the WRC spec or things like this.

Now, normally I'm not a huge body kit fan, particularly if they're on a Capri.

But I think the 205, this is the kind of mock body kit that made it look like the T16 Group B rally car from the 1980s.

And actually, I think the body kit works quite well.

It's got a spoiler at the back, some fake side strikes at the back over the rear wheels, and a bit nicer interior.

This is a 1989 Audi Quattro, 184,000 miles.

They were built really, really well.

But still, even though they dominated rallying for that kind of period just before Group B and into Group B rallying, You don't see that many.

Again, I'm not seeing people bring Audi Quattros to car meets.