This week’s expedition takes us on a trek to find lost rally cars. The World over, rally cars are unfortunately a bit disposable due to the abuse they see while being used in competition. Rally is devastating to cars and equipment, even if a car never sees a bad crash. After constant use and abuse it’s hard to keep them straight and it’s even harder to keep them up to safety specs. It’s easy to keep a 40+ year old road race car up to specs but with rally, it’s nearly impossible without a large investment. With those factors in play, it is pretty common place to see used, semi-competitive rally cars selling very cheap and it’s very common to find them parked, just wasting away. I put my best Indiana Jones custom on and go searching for the holy grail of junked rally cars.
Group B Dumpster/Treasure Chest
A Renault R5 Turbo and this isn’t just a normal R5, it’s an Evo 2 which were the homologation version built to make the R5 eligible for Group B rally racing. There were only 200 of the Evo 2 cars built! Seeing this one sitting there, used as a dumpster is heart breaking.
Skeletal Remains
Alright, I admit it, I have a bit of a fetish for the Lancia Stratos. Growing up in the States we didn’t see much Group B rally back in the day due to the lack of US media caring about international rally racing (and no, there wasn’t internet back then), the only time we saw Group B was in racing magazines, usually from Europe that would end up in the race shop being passed down from another shop or a race team. In 1990 my fetish started after seeing one at Willow Springs during a test day. Most would see this neglected Stratos as an eyesore, it is basically just part of the chassis and doors. It is way to expensive to rebuild but I want to take it home and use it as a lawn ornament.
Forgotten Gems
The 80s Citroen rally cars were never very popular due to the lack of… well everything except weight. The BX line of cars (there were a handful of different versions made/developed) exceeded the minimum weight requirements by almost 450lbs.! While weight was one issue, it was just one of MANY issues, they were slow, they handled horribly, they were unreliable, they were a mess! So why would we feature them here? Because no matter how bad they were, they are still very cool and very rare. And finding three of them, a BX 4TC, a BX 4TC Sport and a BX 4TC Evolution on the same transport truck just wasting away in Southern France is equivalent to finding the missing gold treasure of Billy the Kid.
Hidden in plain sight
Now what we have here is a very cool find, a Peugeot 205 Rallye. The 205 cars were commonplace in Europe for 15 years, you could get a boring one, a loaded/luxury one, a sporty one, a fast one and then one ready to race. Peugeot teamed up with Talbot Sport to make a almost race ready car available right from the dealer. The 205 Rallye came with a tuned engine, a closer ratio gear box, tweaked suspension and absolutely no creature comforts including sound deadening. They expected to sell 5000 over a 4 year time period but the cars were so popular they sold over 30,000 of them.
Like finding Atlantis
The Ford Cosworth, we could write a book about this motor and the cars that Ford has put them in, each and every one of them has been a winner. In rally the Cosworth Fords were the what legends are made of. The Escorts, the Sapphires, the XRs, the RS500 and the RS200 all had Cosworths powering them. The combination led to countless rally and rally championship wins with masters like Carlos Sainz, Ari Vatanen, Didier Auriol and Stig Blomqvist behind the wheel. A mint Ford Cosworth (any model) will fetch big money when sold and thrashed, forgotten cars like the RS500 and the Sapphire shown here will still bring more money than most normal cars sitting at your local used car dealer.
Yard Sale
The Lancia Delta has a rally history that most other cars dream that they had. The Italian car maker who had been heavily involved in rally for decades hit it big with the Delta. They finally had a car that won in all conditions and all terrains, they were so capable that they even made mediocre drivers shine bright. The cars become so popular that Lancia produced dozens of versions, each of them very focused on being the ultimate driving machine for it’s targeted buyer. At the top of the line is the Delta HF Intergrale Evoluzione (yes, that is spelled correctly) II which was loaded with high performance features that have just recently started showing up in modern cars.
Fools Gold?
The car responsible for bringing AWD to rally, the Audi Quattro. The Quattro cars made their debut in 1980 but it wasn’t until 1984 when the Quattro S1 versions hit the rally stages that things got serious. The S1 cars were entirely different kind of rally car, as long as they stayed together or weren’t in an accident, they were virtually impossible for competitors to match. The car you see here has to be a replica or does it? The whereabouts of all but a handful of the S1 cars are known and those not accounted for were written off in accidents. So what do we have here? Of course a replica is the obvious answer but there are rumors that have been swirling in the rally community for years that the car pictured here was a car given as a gift to Walter Rohrl (Audi rally driver) by Audi. Though Audi nor Walter have never commented. Even if it is a replica it is worth big money as a replica is currently being sold in the States for $180,000.
A find like that of Oak Island
Alright, I admit it, the title on this one is a little bit mean but I am making fun of myself. I love the Curse of Oak Island TV show and I love Triumph TR7 and TR8 cars but both of these things have the same thing in common, is there really treasure? The Triumph TR cars are weird, weird in good and bad ways. They are fun, they are amazing fun to drive, that is when they run. Many will argue that there are more unreliable cars, and I am sure there are but these are absolute shit! I seriously don’t understand how or why I have owned and raced two of them nor do I understand why I am still attracted to them. Did I mention that they are shit? Sure it made sense for Triumph to race them, they had to make the public want them and want them we did. On track and on asphalt/tarmac rallies the Triumphs were damn fast. But seriously finding this, I don’t know if I would be tempted to grab it, even if the immediate risk of being rolled over by a giant rock didn’t exist, I would know that every day after I grabbed it would be cursed.
The small finds are the greatest
The Mini is a very important car, it is the car that made it possible for everyone to feel that they could be a rally driver. The first Mini hit the rally stages in 1960 but in 1962 a Mini driven by Paddy Hopkirk won the Monte Carlo rally which at the time was the most prestigious rally in the World. It was so big that even the press in the USA gave it some attention. Over a twelve year time span, Mini won dozens of rallies, it also won dozens of touring car championships and races. The Mini is arguably one of the most important production race cars ever! Finding one with documented rally heritage and being able to rescue it would be equal to finding something as special as finding the treasure of the Knights Templar.