You really can’t get enough of Group B rally cars, especially when owners are still putting them through the paces of historic rallies and hill climbs. This video comes from the interior of a Group B-era Lancia Delta S4, one of the most insane rally cars ever built. In its short career, the S4 put the screws to the Peugeot 205 T16 and while it never won a championship, the Lancia will forever be remembered for its insane engine: a mid-mounted 1.8-liter four-cylinder that was both supercharged and turbocharged, putting out around 500 horsepower.
If that sounds like an insane setup in a hatchback, you’d be right, but by 1985, that had become the norm in Group B rally. Renault had started the trend by taking the lowly Renault R5, cleverly sold as the Renault Le Car (literally “the car”) stateside, and making it mid-engined with a giant turbocharger slapped on its miniscule 1.4-liter engine. Turbo lag was, well, problematic, but the R5 Turbo won a few rallies. Soon, Peugeot had turned its 205 hatchback into its own turbocharged, mid-engined beast but had also added an all-wheel drive system.
Lancia had gone a different route initially, building a spiritual successor to the legendary Lancia Stratos rally car, the Lancia 037. The 037 was essentially a mid-engined, rear-drive sports car with a supercharger on the 1.8-liter engine to eliminate turbo lag issues. While the 037 won some rallies, all-wheel drive was the way of the future. Enter the 037’s evolution, which was essentially a similarly constructed hatchback with an all-wheel-drive system. To account for any power deficit, Lancia’s engineers added a turbocharger to the engine. The supercharger remained to reduce lag at low RPM while the turbo made the little hatchback scream once the engine found high revs.
Ultimately, the banishment of the extremely turbo Group B cars in 1986 meant the end of Lancia S4s on stage rally. Like many other Group B cars, however, the S4 continued to make appearances in rallycross. Today, like all Group B cars, the S4 stands as a testament to pushing engine technology (and series regulations) to their modern limits. This recent S4 hill climb video from 2015 shows just how nuts it is to smash the gearbox around and manage 500 horsepower.
Lets not make it sound like the 037 only won a couple rallies. It won the 1983 Manufacturers championship and became the last rwd car to ever win in the WRC. The S4 is for all intensive purposes the car that ended group b due to a tragic accident, it lives on as 1 of the most bad ass purpose built, then put on the street rally cars ever built.