Pelican Parts Forums - Slightly OT: Lancia S4

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That Integrale has to have one of the ugliest interiors around!

A step beyond the S4, but apparently never saw competition. 150HP more, carbon fiber wheels, plus a few other goodies.

http://freespace.virgin.net/shalco.com/lancia_gp_s.htm

Quote:

Originally posted by cegerer
A step beyond the S4, but apparently never saw competition. 150HP more, carbon fiber wheels, plus a few other goodies.

http://freespace.virgin.net/shalco.com/lancia_gp_s.htm

That's some hot ****!
Amazing what they were able to accomplish in 1986...

Too bad that Group B was nixed... Any specific info on why? I keep hearing reference to crashes and tradgedy, but no specific info.

JCM

there was a reason they were called the "killer B's"

The spectator deaths always seem to get blamed, but that wasn't the fault of the cars - that was the fault of poor crowd control. Today's cars - while being much less exotic - are as fast as the old group B cars. There's a website somewhere with an interesting side-by-side comparison. I believe the cars were killed off because costs were escalating out of control and manufacturers were dropping out.

Quote:

Originally posted by cegerer
The spectator deaths always seem to get blamed, but that wasn't the fault of the cars - that was the fault of poor crowd control. Today's cars - while being much less exotic - are as fast as the old group B cars. There's a website somewhere with an interesting side-by-side comparison. I believe the cars were killed off because costs were escalating out of control and manufacturers were dropping out.

Here's the comparison thing:
http://www.stormloader.com/groupb/comparison.html

Interesting history on Group B, as well. Didn't know the 959 was originally a rally car!

Jason

The escalating costs were one thing, the other was that not only were drivers and spectators being killed on the World Championship rallies, they were also being killed in National Championship versions as well.

Key events were the death of Henri Toivenen, rally's version of Ayrton Senna driving an S4, the death of a driver (I forget his name) and several spectators in Portugal whilst driving a Ford RS200 and another spectator incident in Corsica.

At the tme it was 'easier' to blame the speed of the cars than re-organise the rallies themselves or blame the specators.

Remember Audi were already on their way out, Peugoet had no potential Group S car (that's what the ECV was for) and were ready to go, leaving Lancia as the only 'realistic' competitor.
Note, the 959 was really nowhere near ready at the time and Ferrari's contender the 288GTO was rear wheel drive only and again nowhere near ready.
Audi did build a prototype mid engined quattro, cut and shut job, to see if to would help but the results were no conclusive over the sport version....

Re-launching the rally series with the lower spec cars and gradually building them back up to the current monsters was much easier to do.....