Cars that made light work of a dirty job

This writer has always held the view that rally drivers have a wider skills set than their circuit racing counterparts. The reasons are simple. Circuit racers do not have to memorise navigators’ instructions while dealing with really fast corners, they don’t tackle up to 400 separate corners on a given day of competition and they have nice sand traps to crash in, as opposed to ravines, trees, rocks and the like that await errant rally drivers.

Rally cars are also fascinating, always being a finely honed compromise between all out performance and tough reliability. We love them, and have shortlisted seven entries to vie for the title of world’s most iconic rally cars. Here are the first four chosen ones in our two-part series.

Mini Cooper S

Presenting the world with a small, front-wheel drive car in the 1960s, the British Motor Corporation (BMC) encountered a problem. As cute and unique as the Mini was, male motorists simply did not take the vehicle seriously. So, BMC went rallying with the little car, asking F1 legend John Cooper to spruce it up for the task.

The resultant 1 071 cc, 57 kW Mini Cooper S had a top speed of around 160 km/h and, in the hands of experts could traverse things like mountain passes at improbable speeds. So much so that, on 21 January 1964, the Mini Cooper S won the Monte Carlo Rally, with Paddy Hopkirk and Henry Liddon in the cockpit.

The Mini and the Monte Carlo Rally will always be linked, due to the little car’s victories there during the 1960s. Picture: AFP

With no World Rally Championship in place at the time, winning at Monte Carlo against other, significantly more powerful cars was a huge publicity feat. It also showed that front-wheel drive cars could, indeed, flourish over country roads and mountain passes, ice and snow, tight corners and steep gradients.

Purists sometimes point out that rallies of that time were regularity runs, with no specific special stages. But some of the average speeds demanded of competitors over sections of the route were clearly impossible to attain, causing teams to tackle mountain passes and the like flat out. The Mini’s dominance of the Monte Carlo Rally continued, with Finnish team-mates Timo Makinen and Rauno Aaltonen adding two further overall victories — in 1965 and 1967 — to the British manufacturer’s collection.

Lancia Stratos

Lancia presented the Bertone-designed Stratos HF prototype at the 1971 Turin Motor Show – the first car designed from scratch for rallying.

The four leading men behind the project were Lancia team manager Cesare Fiorio, British racer and engineer Mike Parkes, factory rally driver Sandro Munari and Bertone’s head designer Marcello Gandini.

The mid-engined, Ferrari-powered lightweight Lancia Stratos won the 1974, 1975 and 1976 World Rally Championship titles. Picture: AFP

After extensive testing and development, the Stratos was homologated for the 1974 World Rally Championship, with the 500 needed cars powered by the last 500 Ferrari Dino, 2.4-litre V6 engines ever built. Weighing in at under 950 kg, the rear-engined, 240 kW, rear-wheel drive Stratos won the 1974, 1975 and 1976 World Rally Championship titles in the hands of Munari and Bjorn Waldegard.

It might have gone on to win more had not internal marketing politics within the Fiat group placed rallying responsibility on the 131 Abarth.  As well as victories on the 1975, 1976 and 1977 Monte Carlo Rally, all courtesy of Munari, the Stratos won the event with the privateer Chardonnet Team as late as 1979.

Ford Escort Mk II

When the squarer-styled Escort Mark II appeared in January 1975, Ford’s plans for the new car certainly included winning World Championship Rallies.  To that end they homologated the RS1800, which had a 1 833 cc Cosworth BDE DOHC, four-valves per cylinder engine.

For the factory rally cars, that engine was replaced by a two-litre BDG unit with a Cosworth-made, 16-valve aluminium block that produced 186 kW at 6 000rpm. It was complemented by a strengthened transmission tunnel, five-speed straight-cut ZF gearbox and a five-linked suspension. Body shells were heavily strengthened and characterised by wide wheel-arch extensions, plus four large spotlights for night stages.

Ari Vatanen won the World Rally Drivers’ title with a Rothmans Ford Escort in 1981.

The Mark II Escort won its home event, the RAC Rally every year from 1975 to 1979, with victories also coming in a variety of other events around the world.  In 1979 Bjorn Waldegard took the World Drivers’ title, with Hannu Mikkola the runner-up, while Ford scored the year’s Manufacturers’ Championship as well.

Ari Vatanen won the Drivers’ title with an Escort in 1981, despite the arrival of the all-wheel drive Audi Quattro. The Escort Mk II is currently one of the most popular vehicles in Historic car rallies throughout the world.

Opel Ascona 400

First shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1979, the Ascona 400 was a homologation special, of which 400 were sold to make it eligible for rallying’s Group 4 category.

The Opel Ascona 400 became the last two-wheel drive car to win a World Rally Championship in 1982, with Walter Rohrl behind the wheel.

Built at General Motors’ plant in Antwerp, it had a normally aspirated 2.4-litre four-cylinder engine that, with the help of four valves per cylinder, rendered up to 172 kW of power at 7 000 rpm in the works rally cars. Irmscher delivered the rally trim for the exterior in the form of large and widened wheel-arches, light weight hood, front wings, rear boot lid and doors.

In 1981, reigning World Rally Champion Walter Rohrl took the Opel to several rally victories and he claimed the 1982 World Drivers’ title in the car.  In the process, the Ascona 400 became the last two-wheel drive car to win a World Rally Championship.

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