Watch former Top Gear host Tiff Needell flog a Group B car in a classic British rallycross


Watch former Top Gear host Tiff Needell flog a Group B car in a classic British rallycross

The Group B Rally days are remembered for the highs and lows they brought to stage rally with the manic, earth-shakingly powerful all-wheel-drive super-hatchbacks creating a spectacle off the beaten path. The Group B days ended tragically, but in their heyday, nearly all of the iconic Group B cars—Renault R5, Lancia 037, Ford RS200, Audi S1 Quattro—were all turbocharged. The oft-forgotten exception is the Metro 6R4, a small British hatchback that got its power from a 400 horsepower, 3.0-liter V6 (an engine that would later reappear in twin-turbocharged form in the iconic Jaguar XJ220). Despite early promise, the 6R4 never beat any of its turbocharged rivals on the rally stages.

However, after the Group B cars were banned from rallying, they found a new life in rallycross, the popular British-created version of racing that was a mishmash of stage rally and road racing. The resurgent Group B cars hung around big-time rallying for many years, but the 6R4 was fairly new to it when Top Gear host and former racer Tiff Needell got some seat time in the Metro at the 1988 British Rallycross Grand Prix at Brands Hatch.

Even without the massive turbo lag of the 660-horsepower RS200, the 6R4 looks like a handful for Needell, but he certainly seems to be having the time of his life sliding the Metro around the mud-slimed tarmac at Brands Hatch. Even when things go wrong, he’s smiling and just enjoying his time in a car that will become part of the Group B mythology.

Click the image below to see the video!

Tiff_Needell


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