JVL WRC history post

So John posted this on specialstage. It should go directly to their editorials I think. But now I am reposting it. You should complete the story (maybe fill in some spots if you want) and send it to Ben and tell him to put it in Editorials on the main page.


To back up and give a broader understanding of what the names "Group A" and "Group N" mean and then follow the "development" of how the cars got from being either STOCK as in Group N, or STOCK with a few allowances for alternate heavy duty parts would take a big long story with all sorts of teists and turns going back to the early 1980s.

I doubt many here give a sheet.
But very breifly:
Both are a Group of classes for 4 place cars originally produced in a series of a minimum of 5000 in one year.

There are classes within the "Groups" for 1.3, 1.6, max 2.0 and above 2000cc

GpN mean stock.
So to make results manufacturers made what are called "Homologation specials", say Citroen Visa "Mille Pistes" with bigger discs and calipers, shorter final drive and maybe a bit closer box, maybe better steering.

GpA means "Stock" with allowances for "Heavy duty" parts and there are likewise lasses within the Group for 1.3 and 1.6 and under 2.0 and above 2.0
Now the allowance for "heavy duty" alternate parts is where the devil got out of the bottle.
Typically this has meant:steel cranks and steel rods, forged pistons, radical cams, steel flywheels with twin disc clutches, strengtheden or alternate suspension subframes (although to correct slightly, the pick up points must remain within 20 mm of original), custom tubular suspension arms, massive fabricated or cast alloy uprights and hubs, BIG BRAKES, much quicker steering, bigger radiators and intercoolers, alternate turbochargers in the classes with turbos,
Longer suspension travel of around 200-210mm vs typical steet cars around 160-165mm, alternate MUCH LARGER DIFFERENTIALS (to give you an idea, Ford 4x4 stock front diff has a ring gear about 6.7" and is open, the rear diff is 7.0" with a Viscous LSD set at about 50n/m---the first version GpA front diff was 7.5" with a LSD and the next version was 8.8" while the rear went to a 9" ring gear wit a viscous LSD set up to 300n/m--a bit of difference.)

Initially only the GpA cars could have bodyshell reinforcement and stitchwelding.

Now Group A wasn't born to be the top class, it was to be a second tier as the top class was to be the crazy INSANE Group B which were reqired to be produced in a run of only 200 cars, with allowance for "Evolution" parts done in runs of 10%, and that's where we got the 300-450 and up (occasionally) crazy cars.
But they got banned in a stupid and illegal move and disappeared at the end of 1986 and suddnly there was nothing left but the old "second tier" Groups of A and N.

Only Lancia had a complete and competent turbo 4wd car for GpA, Ford had the Cosworth, the acknowledged BHP King, but it was only 2wd; Audis production based cars were too heavy, too slow; Mazda's little 323 GTX was too little, not enough bhp, weak and not competitive, AND THAT WAS ALL THERE WAS.

So the rest, the Japanese especially were left scambling for a car to compete for OVERALL results, the only ones that cout in advertisements.

Now in the GpA "over 2000cc" class were turbocharged cars ended up, there was initially a 40mm restrictor rule, and in GpN a 38mm rule and NOBODY could make their gearboxes last and it was typical to shove in 3-4 gearboxes in a WRC length event (which in the dark ages were usually 2 times or more Special Stage miles than the current paltry weenie length) so everybody lobbied for an interpertation of the rule about "alternate heavy duty gearbox" to be read as INCLUDING THE GEARBOX HOUSING which had not been the case in the first several years.

And that was the djeenie out of the bottle.

$150,000 gearboxes appeared on the Japanese cars, usually made by Extrac in Woking in Surreyin the UK and suddenly Mitsubishi, Toyota and Subaru were fighting for top positions soon followed by Ford when they finally did a 4wd version of the Sierra. (Thier box cost only about 28,000 bucks at the time)

But it was hard disrupting the production lines to build 5000 specials, so all the MFgs lobbied to reduce the numbers for GpA to 2500 and so in 1 Jan 1993 the rule came into effect along with a rule allowing 1 spare turbo, to be carried aboard, and 1 spare transmission per event cuase they were still blowing up boxes.
And the restrictor went to 34mm for GpA and 32mm for GpN.

Now THAT restrictor rule brought with it a whole host of problems and expensive solutions, and again the area of concentration was in the gearboxes and differentials and soon everybody was following Renaults lead with semi-automatic sequential gearboxes.
The costs drove Lancia out of the game, there was no way they could match the endless budgets of the Japonaise, Mazda dropped out, VW tried a season with a crap car and quit, .

Nobody except Subaru and Mitsubishi were producing a suitable turbo 4wd car after the end of Ford Escort Cosworth production ended so a formula was worked out to allow Manufacturers to build turbo 4wd cars out of cars born fwd or rwd if built in a series of minimum 25,000 units,--------
And they were allowed to build only a tiny handful of "kits".

That was supposedly to encourage more manufacturers to enter WRC, and initially it did with Seat, Skoda, Toyota, Citroen, Peugoet and when time ran out for the Escort Cossie, Ford with the WRC Focus building cars to the new rules and things looked good. For a while.

But the cars are insanely expensive with only the block, the head casting, the base bodyshell and headlights remaining from the original cars, and something essential has been lost.
It has become, like Nascar, primarily intended to be a spectacle for folks to stare at., No normal human can afford the costs to run one of these cars where every single part is essentialy a hand built, or hand modified part.


Now in the US the car spec settled in on essentially "Group N and a half"
Alternate gearsets, lsds, and bigger brakes---until the arrival of good brakes on the Subarus and Mitsubishis..

With huge difference in strength and durability of the chassi and driveline parts, WRC motor can be much more brutal in power delivery and the cars can be driven harder reliably with less worry about breaking hubs and arms and links and diffs etc.

But it's the allowance of only 20 or 25 kits that has allowed the sport to radically depart from the days when a guy to expect to eventually afford a car which was once capable of top WRC level results.

The fact that there's really only 2 cars realistically able to win consistantly at the WRC level attests to the fact that things got lost somewhere.

Hope this helped some.

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Grant Hughes

How bout the different catogories;

N1/A5 - Adjusted engine displacement smaller than 1400cc
N2/A6 - Adjusted engine displacement smaller than 1600cc
N3/A7 - Adjusted engine displacement smaller than 2000cc
N4/A8 - Adjusted engine displacement bigger than 2000cc


PS: N again being stock and A being modified

Besides these major categories there are the historics and spec type classes like JVL's infamous "Group F"


Cheers,
Oscar

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!