What is a "Works" car?

I hear this term come up from time to time in rally racing. Seems like privateers don't drive works cars, the lower end of the badass cars aren't works cars and the top level cars are "works" cars? What does this mean?

---

Michael LeCompte

pikespeakgtx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hear this term come up from time to time in
> rally racing. Seems like privateers don't drive
> works cars, the lower end of the badass cars
> aren't works cars and the top level cars are
> "works" cars? What does this mean?


Works once meant the car was prepared by the "Factory" or "works" competition department and every manufacturer had their own competition department.

These days whoi knows. The Sub-a-rat Rally Team USA" is a importer supported, run out of a well equiped shop but all the Sub-a-rat groupies call it a "Factory" car.

It's sorta like the use of the word "Professional", which now means "Somebody who pays a shop a shitload of money" when only 30 years ago it meant "A person who makes a living doing this or that".

The details of the cars depend on what class it's built for.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

My car works.

My car works for me too.

But John is absolutely correct. A "works" car is an old term for one prepared by the competition department of the manufacturer. These days, most manufacturers sub the competition departments out. Prodrive in Great Britian is the "works" preparer for Subaru. At least I think they build Subarus.

---

RichardM

yeah I knew projunk does the subarus. You don't happen to know who builds the wrc focus or the citroen c4, xsara whatever it's called do ya?

---

Michael LeCompte

Focus are built by m-sport
Not sure with with citroen

---

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

It would appear Citroen has a "works" department that does their cars. See: http://www.citroen.com/CWW/en-US/SPORT/MPSPORT.htm
At least I think they are factory owned.

---

RichardM

Yeah. Citroen is almost all in house. They sub out to some companies like Xtrac for diffs, but most of it is built and designed in house. There was a good article tour of their facilities in Racecar engineering a few months back.
The Focus is built and run by M-Sport/Malcolm Wilson.

---

Grant Hughes

Ok, thanks... I recognize Malcolm Wilson's name, I always thought he was a team leader who worked for Ford, didn't know about Msport or that he owned it.

Works cars always seem to dominate the sport, I wonder if so much of Citroen's success can be attributed to the fact that they do almost everything in house (true works cars). So that the production car chassis is purely made for WRC.

To further explain, I doubt the Ford Focus design engineers build the car for the primary objective of being a rally car. They build it for production, economy, commuter status. And it's M-sports job to make it a rally car. On the other hand Citroen builds the C4 chassis optimized for rally duty first(with the exception of stiched seams and chassis braces which obviously come later), and then bolts on the production bits suited for economy and commuting to sell to the public.

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me the C4 was a rally car first, then a production car, where as a focus and wrc were production cars first then rally cars.

It also can't hurt that Citroen's primary concentration is WRC, and basically no other forms of motorsport that I'm aware of.

Do you think there's any validity to what I'm saying?
Is it also clear that the Citroen is the baddest ass WRC car going?

---

Michael LeCompte

I doubt that the C4 was design as a rally car first. I think that the only difference is that the team who make it into a rally car are paid directly by the manufacturer. I think all the "works" teams whether directly working for the manufacuter or as subcontractors have the same access to bodies in white and to the original design plans. In fact, I recall reading that the Citroen of a couple of years ago started as a convertible as that chassis was easier to work on.

---

RichardM

interesting Richard. I looked into it and to my suprise FORD won the manufactures championship last year. But Gronholm and Hirvonen, both do consistently well and Loeb is always tops but can't say the same about Sordo...so it's not that big of a surprise to me.

I remember reading about the Suzuki SX4 which is their new entry to the wrc. that much of the features of the chassis for the production car were there simply for the rally version of the car. One in particular was the weird A pillar design. Monster Tajima is head of Suzuki sport who builds the cars and I remember reading this and of course now I can't find anything...

In the search for reading this I also found they might scrap it. FIA has the 2012 plan for less computer control in the cars to lower operating costs, but it may be sooner like 2009 that they'll implement this.

---

Michael LeCompte

Please don't confuse me as being some one actually knows how the top flight cars are constructed as I as just an average hobbiest. But one who has been around a while, i.e., I'm getting to be an old fart. But the electronic changes being proposed would not affect the chassis modificaitons.

---

RichardM

pikespeakgtx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ok, thanks... I recognize Malcolm Wilson's name, I
> always thought he was a team leader who worked for
> Ford, didn't know about Msport or that he owned
> it.
>
> Works cars always seem to dominate the sport, I
> wonder if so much of Citroen's success can be
> attributed to the fact that they do almost
> everything in house (true works cars). So that the
> production car chassis is purely made for WRC.
>
> To further explain, I doubt the Ford Focus design
> engineers build the car for the primary objective
> of being a rally car. They build it for
> production, economy, commuter status. And it's
> M-sports job to make it a rally car. On the other
> hand Citroen builds the C4 chassis optimized for
> rally duty first(with the exception of stiched
> seams and chassis braces which obviously come
> later), and then bolts on the production bits
> suited for economy and commuting to sell to the
> public.
>
> Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me the C4 was a
> rally car first, then a production car, where as a
> focus and wrc were production cars first then
> rally cars.
>
> It also can't hurt that Citroen's primary
> concentration is WRC, and basically no other forms
> of motorsport that I'm aware of.
>
> Do you think there's any validity to what I'm
> saying?
> Is it also clear that the Citroen is the baddest
> ass WRC car going?
>

One thing that you might consider is this....


The "official party line" for Subaru and Prodrive is that there is a very significant amount of cross engineering. A lot of what Prodrive finds to be undesireable or functional, is corrected, complimented or implemented back at the factory in future models. Both entities share a lot of engineering staff in designing the cars, especially the chassis. They touch on this cooperation in the Engineering the World Rally programs, but it is difficult to extract the true extent of the overlap without an inside source. Part of the cooperation may be due to the fact that rallying is still seen as a major part of Subaru's branding strategy, part of it is also likely due to Subaru's interest in rally and Group N rules (and that Prodive works hand in hand with STI for the homolgulations).

Most of the teams share resources and engineering staff with the manufacturers. Citroen just happens to operate its motorsports operations out of corporate facilities.

In the US expressions such as "nuts" spec (my personal favorite) are a little more accurate since none of the manufacturers are actually involved in building the cars (although, there could be a more convincing argument that the SYMS Rockstar cars were more works spec than the VSC/SRTUSA cars in 2007 since SYMS is at least partially owned by Fuji Heavy Industries and does official OEM work for Subaru on some projects).

Richard Miller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
In fact, I recall reading that the
> Citroen of a couple of years ago started as a
> convertible as that chassis was easier to work on.
>
> RichardM


I think that was the Peugoet 307 you are thinking of. It was awful compared to the powerhouse that was the 206, but PSA mgmt wanted to sell more 307's so pushed it on the rally team.

---

Nick Taylor.
Knobhead.
Los Angeles, CA.

As I said, don't confuse me with somebody who actually knows something.

---

RichardM