Many know of the famous Audi Quattro, Ford RS200, and Peugeot 205 T16, but this does not show the full picture of Group B. Rules allowed manufacturers to create small production run specials of their mass produced roadgoing cars. They needed only to produce 20 evolution models of a regular production car to compete so long as more than 200 production cars were produced. This allowed manufacturers with large budgets to produce a new specialized model with 200 “regular” cars and 20 cutting edge specials as well as manufacturers with smaller budgets to evolutionize one of their regular production cars for racing. Many forgotten cars fit into this second category: Citroen Visa 1000 Pistes, Skoda 130LR and the Talbot-Lotus Sunbeam. Many cars were homologated by their manufacturers so that their customers could drive a nearly stock car in a world class event with a much smaller budget than is possibe today. This was the real goal of group B. By reducing restrictions on numbers of cars homologated, companies could produce competative race cars for less money.
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