The Top 10 BILSTEIN Group A Rally Cars

Did you know that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the last year that the World Rally Championship was run exclusively under the Group A rules? Group A cars continued to compete and win after 1996 of course (Tommi Makkinen scooped 3 of his 4 titles in the years that followed), but they were increasingly replaced by cars built to the newly introduced WRC regulations.

Group A machines are all too often overlooked, sandwiched as they were between the notorious Group B cars which preceded them and the more modern, exotic WRC cars which followed. Thing is, we think that Group A cars are well worth celebrating – not least because so many of them competed and succeeded using our suspension products, so we thought it high time that they got a bit more recognition. Here’s another BILSTEIN list then, this time exclusively containing our favourite BILSTEIN-shod Group A rally cars!

Sierra Cosworth 2WD
Ford hit a spell of bad WRC luck after the retirement of the Mk2 Escort, with the short lived RS1700T and RS200 both having failed to deliver the rallying bacon for reasons outside their control. While it didn’t deliver Boreham outright championship glory, the two-wheel drive Sierra Cosworth more than merits inclusion on this list, as it was one of the most spectacular Group A machines and one of the few cars able to give the mighty Lancia Delta Integrale a run for its money on sealed surfaces. It also warrants a mention as it helped so many future WRC champions find their way into the upper reaches of the sport, including Carlos Sainz, Didier Auriol and Colin McRae.

Lancia Delta Integrale
The archetypal Group A rally car and the most successful single model in rallying history, the Delta Integrale allowed Lancia to pick up pretty much where it left off with the Group B Delta S4, and eventually brought it an astonishing 6 constructors championships in succession. The immediacy of this success was partly down to timing – the Delta was well developed by 1987 and the majority of its competitors were too big, too heavy or two-wheel drive. Lancia was fastidious in its development of the Integrale and it became quicker and more sophisticated with each passing season, the addition of a 16v head being one of the most significant. The mighty Delta was finally brought to ground in 1993, the year that Lancia bowed out of the sport as a works entity.

BMW E30
The E30 is better known for its domination of various touring car championships also run under the Group A regulations, but it was also a very competitive rally machine when driven in the manner its maker intended – sideways! Part of the reason for the competitiveness enjoyed by the works machines was down to the fact they were developed by Prodrive, the Banbury based concern which would go on to great things with Subaru. Its rear-wheel drive layout ensured that it would always be a bit-player on the gravel events where traction was the be all and end all, but it could be relied upon to be scintillatingly quick on any tarmac event you care to mention, with an outright win on the 1987 Tour de Corse and multiple national titles proof of its abilities.

Toyota Celica ST165
Japanese manufacturers had been a fixture of world rallying throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, but wasn’t until the tail end of the latter decade and the foregrounding of the Group A regs that they really began to make their presence felt. Toyota was the first to taste outright championship success with its Celica, a car it’d actually been campaigning in one form or another for over 10 years. The decision to sign rising star Carlos Sainz from Ford was a masterstroke and one that was to prove instrumental in the marque’s rise to prominence, as was the Xtrac four-wheel drive system and the BILSTEIN dampers that underpinned the ST165 itself. Cooling – or lack of it – was a constant issue and one never satisfactorily resolved, and it contributed to a number of bitterly cruel retirements in 1989. It was only fitting that everything should finally come together the following year, the ST165 allowing Sainz to taste championship success for the first time.

Escort Cosworth
Ford opted to utilise much of the running gear and chassis architecture from the rugged but somewhat unwieldy Sierra Sapphire Cosworth 4x4 in the creation of the Escort Cosworth, and the two cars therefore had much in common. Where the Escort differed though was in size, weight and sophistication, its tighter packaging and reduced mass much better suited to the modern WRC. The retention of the Cosworth YB ensured that it was never short of power, while BILSTEIN dampers were just one component within a sophisticated suspension arrangement that proved effective on both tarmac and gravel. It also had THAT rear wing, a feature which made it instantly recognisable and gave it enormous presence and downforce. There were plenty of wins but no championships though, Ford’s charge hampered by a relatively modest budget and a bizarre accident involving lead driver Francois Delecour and a Ferrari F40, the latter leaving him with a broken leg which left him out of action for most of 1994.

Subaru Legacy RS
It was never the most stylish or even the most successful of cars (it wasn’t even the most successful Subaru rally car), but the Legacy still warrants a place on this list and a prominent place in the annals of WRC history. BILSTEIN dampers were fitted to all works cars campaigned by Prodrive and undoubtedly played a part in their success, but It took the signing of Colin McRae for the results to really start to flow, the Scot’s maiden on the 1993 Rally of New Zealand also being Subaru’s.

Opel Kadett GSi
The sudden demise of Group B left something of a power vacuum at the top of the WRC, a vacuum that allowed a number of smaller teams to succeed in cars which wouldn’t have stood a chance a few short months previously. Renault’s front-wheel drive 11 Turbo did surprisingly well, as did the Opel Kadett GSi, or Mk2 Astra GTE as it was known in the UK. Initially homologated with the 1.8 8v, GM Dealer Sport soon realised that more grunt was required if the front-wheel drive car was ever to be truly competitive, and the new C20XE ‘Redtop’ 16v proved just the ticket! It eventually produced over 200bhp, all of it routed through an Xtrac transmission and fed to the front wheels in as smooth a manner as possible. The new engine served to make the car more competitive on all surfaces, but no one expected it to be able to challenge for outright wins, and this served to make Sepp Haider’s overall victory on the 1988 Rally of New Zealand all the more extraordinary.

Subaru Impreza
BILSTEIN hardware could be found under the arches of all the Prodrive campaigned first gen Imprezas, the firm’s iconic logo nestled midway along the trailing edge of the front wings. A consummate all rounder, the Impreza was competitive from the moment it was unveiled partway through the 1993 season, but it wasn’t until the following year that the silverware really started to mount up. The pairing of Carlos Sainz and Colin McRae was one of the best ever, and the cunning Spaniard and the tempestuous Scot chalked up wins in Greece, New Zealand (an event McRae won 3 years on the trot) and the RAC. The pair then went on to battle for the drivers’ title throughout 1995, McRae ultimately emerging victorious thanks to a well timed win on the season ending RAC.

Toyota Celica ST185
Toyota Team Europe (TTE) had tasted championship success with the Celica ST165, the car that finally saw off the Lancia threat, and went on to become one of the dominant powers in world rallying. Their next charger was also a Celica, this time the bigger, heavier, better cooled and more powerful ST185, a car which sported BILSTEIN suspension and won its debut event, the 1992 Safari. It was a tricky car to drive on the limit though, a problem which drove TTE to distraction and ultimately led them to lock the differential 50:50 towards the end of 1992. It was finally cured by the installation of a trick viscous system, a tweak which finally allowed the car to reach its full potential and enabled it to win three titles on the trot, one apiece for Carlos Sainz (1992), Juha Kankkunen (1993) and Didier Auriol (1994), plus a pair of manufacturer titles for Toyota.

Mitsubishi Galant VR-4
The Galant was an unassuming machine, every inch the archetypal Group A saloon rally car with its roots firmly in the production class. It had a locked centre differential that split power 50:50 and therefore had buckets of traction, a powerful engine making over 300bhp, BILSTEIN uprights and tank like reliability, the latter coming with one downside – increased weight. The Galant’s hefty weight, a full 200kg over the Celica ST165, proved more of a problem on sealed surface events, but it could always be counted upon to be competitive on gravel. Mikael Ericsson took one to victory on the 1989 1000 Lakes, while Pentti Airikkala followed it up with a win on that year’s RAC rally.

Jamie Arkle