We’ve written a bunch over about Group B rally cars over the years here at BangShift. We’re by no means rally experts, but these machines need to be in the lexicon of every serious gearhead. The so-called “Killer-Bs” wiped out drivers and spectators during their brief years of existence in the early 1980s. They are the rally equivalent of a fuel altered. Stupidly loose rules allowed engineers to run wild and what resulted were rally cars with nearly 1,000hp out of a couple liters of displacement and fairly primative suspension technology.
One of the great lines from this documentary comes from a former factory racing engineer who mentions that modern rally cars are faster, but they don’t look nearly as fast as the old Group B cars because they are so well sorted out. As you’ll see in the video, the drivers were absolutely working for a living in these cars. One little snippet you’ll see shows a car black tracking all four tires around a high speed sweeping left. It is breathtaking stuff.
Fall is settling in, the days are colder, chances are the skies are gray overhead and it is Monday. Screw the pile of work on your desk and invest an hour getting educated and watching some totally bitchin’ rally footage from the 1980s. Nothing against the talented professional rally drivers of today, but they have it easy compared to the lunatics who strapped into the Group B machines of the 1980s.
Press play and settle in. This documentary rules!
Imagine an american car in these style..too bad there wasnt any brands in the Us that went rallying these years.