To fans of rally racing, Group B rally cars hold the same reverence that vintage Fuel Altereds do for drag racing fans. Something along the lines of, “That actually happened?!” Like the golden age of the AA/FAs, Group B lived a short but exciting life as a rally class. When competitors started dying with some regularity, the FIA pulled the plug on the class.
So what were the Group B rules that allowed for such outrageous machinery? It was the classic case of not exactly opening Pandora’s Box, but instead, failing to wrap chains around it and submerge it in 13 feet of concrete. The rules were an engineer’s delight and guys took every liberty they could.
The FIA wrote the Group B rules with very few rules governing anything. There were no restriction on body materials, boost levels, exotic engine technology, or even a vehicle’s resemblance to a factory model. The other big hook for manufacturers was that they only needed to produce 200 of the competition model (in street trim) to be homologated. Other classes demanded that mass-produced models be used as the basis for competition entries. There was no such concern in Group B.
Ultimately, what ended the class was the fact that the machinery and technology had exceeded anyone’s wildest dreams and even the best drivers in the world were wadding them up—fatally, in several cases. The class born in 1982 was already outlawed by 1986 after the death of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver at a rally on the
island of Corsica.
Now that we’ve had the glimpse back at what led to the creation of the cars, let’s look at the model that many people associate with this class directly, the Audi Quattro S1. While there were entries from many manufacturers, Ford included, the Audi is widely recognized as the most powerful of the bunch.
We’ll take a peek at the car that competed in the later stages of Group B as it represents the most highly evolved of the bunch. When you start reading the specs on this thing you have to remember these numbers were generated in 1986, more than 20 years ago now.
Powered by a 128ci, two-valve-per-cylinder, DOHC, five-banger that sported 7.6:1 compression and a single turbo and produced 600hp in its highest competitive race tune, this car makes noises like few others in history. The bore and stroke are Tom Thumb numbers, as you’d expect: 3.1 x 3.3 inches respectively. In case you are wondering, that’s close to 300 hp per liter.
The car’s body was made of Kevlar, and it was of course all-wheel-drive. It had a six-speed sequential transmission. McPherson struts helped dampen the inevitable blows from the ever changing rally terrain. It weighed roughly 2,400 pounds and accelerated from 0-60 in an eyeball-flattening 3.1 seconds. Now imagine driving that beast on dirt.
One of the truly neat features that the Audi engineers worked into the operation of the motor was a function that allowed air to reroute itself through the turbo when the driver lifted for a corner or other reason; this kept the turbo spooled up and meant that as soon as the shoe cracked the throttle again, the motor was at full song instantly. It was totally no holds barred.
The Audi captured the Group B title in 1982 and 1984, but would see success in 1985 racking up a couple victories, including one at Pikes Peak with factory driver and pioneering female racer Michele Mouton behind the wheel. That victory also yielded a world record. In 1987, another factory driver and a man whose name many fans associate with the S1, Walter Rohrl, performed the same feat as Mouton, winning the hillclimb.
In a rather famous, “oh by the way” moment, Audi revealed after Class B had been eliminated that it had developed and tested a 1,000hp version of the S1. The car never made it to the race track because even the burliest of Audi’s test pilots said that the car was uncontrollable at that power level. During the days of the 600hp tuneup, Rohrl quipped that accelerating the car from 180-200 mph was like moving a normal car from 30-40.
Words can only do this craziness so much justice. Check out the video below to see Walter Rohrl doing the deed in the S1. Pay close attention to the fans diving out of the way as he careened through narrow crowds of people at what seems like 150mph. This is an entirely new level of nuts.
