Group B Story
 

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I never get tired of watching mini-docs on the killer B's. This is a really good one; great images, great narration and just long enough that my limited ability to concentrate isn't taxed.

A terrific saturday morning post. Thanks!

"Voodoo Lounge"... Schön.

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I wonder how many people were hit hard enough to cause enough unsustainable damage to the car.

And..., would it be safe to say that the Group B cars laid the groundwork for later cars and features like torque vectoring? They certainly pushed the turbo envelope. I'm trying to place the time in history when the Toyota GTP car had a 1000 HP 4.

Mechanics would find "bits of hair and clothing stuck in the grills, and even fingers wedged into the air ducts"

LOL, insane

Trivia: the very last Group B rally was Olympus in the USA :cool:

This is some footage I posted of John Buffum's Grp B Sport quattro at the 1985 Press on Regardless Rally in Michigan. I love this clip. You can hear that 5-cylinder turbo snorting and popping 1/2 mile away. It's the friggin' Tasmanian Devil! I showed this to Buffum several years ago and he got an ear-to-ear grin :D

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One of the dealers I work for at one time worked for Dick Turner on his IH Scout that regularly finished in SCCA Pro Rally. Turner ran from '78 to '82 but he raced with John Buffum many times.

I think my friend was 17 at the time. He is a WA native. Good stories.

^^^ very cool. I saw Turner at the POR in 1981 running a Ford EXP with, I think, a V8 in it (SCCA Pro Rally was pretty much run anything you can come up with back then). It also ran an automatic trans for some reason. The car had been featured in AutoWeek and had some backing from Ford Motorsport. It was exciting to see it run. The package sounded promising but it turned out to be a flop.

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More Group B action at POR with the quattro, Peugeot 205 T16, and Rod Millen's AWD Mazda RX-7.


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Not Group B, but I was able to work Tech at the Ojibwa rally and Start/Finish on some of the day and night stages in 1987 & 1988. Got to touch & see very closely many of the Audi Quattro's running that event.

This was the podium at the last Group B rally. 1986 Olympus Rally in Washington State.

1st. Markku Alen in a Lancia Delta S4:
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2nd. Juha Kankunnen in a Peugeot 205 T16:
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3rd. John Buffum in an Audi Sport quattro:
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Great pictures and Video (thanks for sharing).

While no where near the fierceness of the Killer Bees, I do own a nicely modified Group A:

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Seeing Group B rally cars on the Lombard GB Rally as my 1st ever live auto racing event made me decide I needed to work in motorsport

Before this, my only exposure to motorsport was offshore and inshore powerboat racing

That looks great fun, is it a Mazda 323 4x4?

Yes it is.

Lots of fun. Grips and rips!

Yasin

^^^ those are great rally cars. Rod Millen had one for that 1986 Olympus Rally and a friend of mine, Steve Nowicki, rallied one for a few years.

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This is my 1983 quattro that I sold 6-7 years ago. Not a factory-built car. Not Group B, but more like the early Group 4 quattros. Lots of fun :cool: Sold it to a guy in Hong Kong who updated the cage and other safety items to current requirements and rallied it for a few years in the US with no success.

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Having lived through it and near it, I think some of the Group B lore is vastly exaggerated or put on a pedestal... I was on the side of a stage in the "tour de corse" I wanna say 85... The cars were amazing and I totally imprinted on that era, but they were not the monsters that today's lore makes them to be. I think (preparing to be corrected) modern WRC cars are way faster than B cars and nobody is screaming "danger". I bet they make speed differently though, less power maybe but more grip.... Modern WRC are more efficient when sliding less so they look less "out there". I miss the slides!

I guess what was crazy was the crowd behavior especially in Portugal and Monte carlo. Back then rally was maybe bigger than F1 for a bit, and it was harder to charge people to spectate (LOL, don't ask). I did attend the Monte too, but not during group b, later when the Lancia delta was out - maybe 88 I wanna say? still nuts with people actually tossing snow on the road when it was melting and that caused issues. To me what was nuts in the B era was the lack of FIA safety regs on where people put fuel tanks and probably more safety stuff, especially Lancia who was never known to build the safest cars and got away with stuff !

Mostly the cars were cool and slid more. I don't know how many people get excited at the sight of a Yaris or Hyundai nowadays, I simply cannot relate and have no yearning for either. Bring back M3s, 911s, Alpines, the big ford Cosworths... Maybe 4WD wasn't so good...

^^^ Yup, WRC cars today are far quicker. It's mostly about improvements in suspension and suspension travel. They don't 'look' as fast because they're so smooth. Group B was spectacular because they lacked good suspension/traction and were constantly sideways or in the air .

Really good vid here posted by Dirtfish. Michelle Mouton - the greatest female driver in motorsport history - reacts to footage of her 1982 Acropolis WRC victory.


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