Group B. Four years without limits.
For a brief period, the FIA left manufacturers to build almost without rules. The result was the most radical rally cars asphalt — and dirt — has ever seen. This is the story of the golden era of the World Rally Championship.
Homologate 200. Build whatever you want.
In 1982, the FIA replaced the old Group 4 with a new premier category: Group B. You only had to build 200 road cars to homologate a model — and just 20 for its evolutions. There were hardly any real technical limits.
Seven manufacturers threw themselves into that arms race: Audi, Lancia, Peugeot, Ford, MG, Citroën, and Renault. Each interpreted the rules in its own way. None held back.Group B, 1983–8
Less than one ton. More than 500 horsepower.
Audi had shown in 1980 that four-wheel drive changed the rules of the game with the Quattro. When Group B arrived, its final evolution, the Sport Quattro S1, came close to 600 hp.
Lancia responded first with the 037 —the last great rear-wheel-drive Group B car— and then with the Delta S4, a monster with both turbo and supercharger that accelerated from 0 to 100 km/h in just over two seconds, on gravel.
Peugeot entered with the 205 T16, Ford with the RS200, and MG with the surprising Metro 6R4. None looked like the road car they —in theory— came from.
It took more than courage.
Hannu Mikkola and Stig Blomqvist gave Audi their drivers' titles in 1983 and 1984. Walter Röhrl and Ari Vatanen fought stage by stage against the most unpredictable machines ever homologated. Timo Salonen took Peugeot to the top in 1985.
And there was Henri Toivonen, considered by many the most gifted driver of his generation at the wheel of the Lancia Delta S4 — the name that, unintentionally, would end this story.
1986. Speed outpaced safety.
Group B cars had become too fast for the closed roads they raced on, surrounded by thousands of spectators with hardly any protection. In early 1986, a car went off the road at the Rally of Portugal in the middle of the crowd, with fatalities among the fans.
Months later, at the Rally of Corsica, Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto lost their lives when their Lancia Delta S4 went over a ravine. It was the turning point.
Group B ended. The rivalry did not.
Audi withdrew from asphalt rallying after the Toivonen tragedy, but its all-wheel-drive technology had already changed motorsport forever — a legacy that lives on in every four-wheel-drive competition car.
Lancia was the one that best weathered the blow.
In just a few months, Lancia adapted its engineering to the new regulations and introduced the Delta HF 4WD, the seed of what would come next. Its evolution, the Delta Integrale, did not stop winning for six consecutive years — and for much of the fanbase, it remains the best rally car ever built.
