Here is my French car, 1.6L only 165HP weight under 1400lb.
Here is my French car, 1.6L only 165HP weight under 1400lb.
To me, WRC ended as an interesting sport when they stopped racing factory cars and went into all-out purpose-built racecars. Loeb's a phenomenal driver, but he doesn't race a "french car". He drives an essentially one-off specialized racing vehicle which mostly shares the model name with its production counterpart. Can the French make a good racecar? Oh hell yes. And yet, the hottest roadgoing versions of the Xsara/C4/DS3 that took Loeb to his innumerable victories are about as exciting as a grated carrot in a nunnery compared to the WRC version.Originally Posted by a110rally
So I maintain, in the days when you could drive a street-legal rally car off a dealer lot, the Japanese dominated.
Looks like a blast to drive.
That may be the case now, but earlier times you could order a car pretty well full rally spec.
On the other hand I don't think for a moment that any Subaru WRC you can get is like a works rally car.
a110, you have the most ridiculously awesome cars, and I'm so glad you've found us, because we NEED your perspective. So many of us have been raised at the teat of Fuji Heavy Industries, and have knowledge of Japanese cars, but very little of European. I re-iterate, I'm SO glad you're here! PS, love your racecar! Also your Viggo Mortenson looks!
Anyhow - regarding the off the lot Jap car business. I was under the same impression, when watching a video on Subaru in the rally business, they went over the parts that went into the cars, and just the dogbox was 45,000.00 (Can't remember if that was pounds or dollars - I suspect pounds). Then, reading in the Impreza story book, they mention that things changed for late 90's and WRC started to allow high-performance mods and that's when things started to get "expensive". My impression is that in 92-95 at least, the cars off the lot were very close to what they ran in WRC. Incorrect?
Well yes, completely agreed. I was just commenting on French factory cars dominating WRC in the last decade. They're French, they dominate, they're nothing like factory.
Now or, say, fifteen years ago? You could buy a car from Subaru or Mitsubishi that were fairly close to what McRae and Makinen drove on the stages. Sure, they weren't facsimiles of the team cars, but they did use the same driveline, same engine model, and were much closer to their big brothers than today's anemic FWD Fiestas to Hirvonen's race car.
Well, back to the French! Your Alpine is just dreamy. Loving it. Nobody will be brave enough to put something like that in production ever again, and that's sad.
Yeah right, back a few years you could have a car close to the real thing.
Now it would be just ridiculously expensive, beside the manufacturers are not keen on selling special cars.
As for the Alpine, it was killed when the Stratos came out and on purpose because the Italians or any manufacturer for that matter, didn't have anything that could beat the Alpine from the late 60s to early 70s.
The Stratos had the Ferrari Dino V6 engine midship with a lot more power and speed.
In the same time Renault, who by that time took over Alpine, was in financial trouble and it wasn't in their interest to further develope the Alpine.
They made a half hearted effort with the A310 but it wasn't anything like the A110.
There has been rumors of a new Alpine but so far nothing and even if they built one it just wouldn't be like the original.
Well, thanks Soren I love the car but it's been sitting in storage for a long time and now I decided to do something with it.
I never raced it that's why it still has the previous owner's name on it.
I like Japanese cars but know more about European makes, mind you the first Celica is still a nice looking car.
Anyway, thanks for the compliments, I'm much older now but still have the fire in my belly.
Yes you are correct the earlier cars were closer to the real thing, today's rally cars are out of reach for most of us with such special parts, components cost a fortune.
Mind you just the tranny in my car cost 25K, I didn't want to believe but after asking several times Gilles told me that was what he paid for it.
a110, you have the most ridiculously awesome cars, and I'm so glad you've found us, because we NEED your perspective. So many of us have been raised at the teat of Fuji Heavy Industries, and have knowledge of Japanese cars, but very little of European. I re-iterate, I'm SO glad you're here! PS, love your racecar! Also your Viggo Mortenson looks!
Anyhow - regarding the off the lot Jap car business. I was under the same impression, when watching a video on Subaru in the rally business, they went over the parts that went into the cars, and just the dogbox was 45,000.00 (Can't remember if that was pounds or dollars - I suspect pounds). Then, reading in the Impreza story book, they mention that things changed for late 90's and WRC started to allow high-performance mods and that's when things started to get "expensive". My impression is that in 92-95 at least, the cars off the lot were very close to what they ran in WRC. Incorrect?
the a110 Rally was a truly exceptional car!! Just out of curiosity, what does yours do 0-60mph as a rough guess? Just looking to gauge it by modern day standards..
Well, the car weighs about 620 kg and has 165HP, it should be in the mid 5s or better depending on gearing.
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