Group B

Did You Know?

• The Porsche 961 prototype, intended for Group B homologation, won the GTX class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1986 but crashed and caught fire in 1987.
• The Ferrari 288 GTO met the minimum production requirement but never competed in its intended category.
• The last Group B cars were homologated in 1993, though the FIA made provisions for national championships until 2011.

Overview

In 1982, the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) restructured the production car category of Appendix J to consist of three new groups. Group N and Group A replaced the outgoing Group 1 and Group 2 for unmodified and modified production touring cars respectively, requiring four seats and 5,000 units homologated in 12 months (reduced to 2,500 from 1993). Group B was for GT cars with a minimum of two seats, redefined as sports grand touring cars in 1986, and combined and replaced Group 3, Group 4, and the production-derived Group 5 silhouette cars. The homologation requirement for Group B was 200 cars, only 4% of what some other groups required and half of Group 4's previous minimum. Homologation periods could be extended by producing 10% of the initial requirement each subsequent year (20 cars for Group B), and 'evolutions' could be added without a new initial run by producing 20 evolved cars. These rules produced rare 'homologation specials' built only to meet the quota. Group B allowed homologation of production sports cars ineligible for Group N or A due to lacking four seats or sufficient production numbers, such as the Ferrari 308 or Porsche 911. The low production requirement encouraged competition-oriented space frames instead of unibodies. Existing cars from Groups 2, 3, and 4 could be transferred to Group B, with many automatically transferred by the FISA secretariat.

Regulations

Group B regulations were built on Articles 252 and 253, which covered safety cages and car-defining parts like windshields and side-view mirrors. Article 256, specific to Group B, was just five paragraphs over half a page, but it incorporated most of Article 255's seven pages for Group A. The first two paragraphs of Article 256 defined "(Sports) Grand Touring Cars" as having at least two seats and set their homologation rules. The "Fittings and Modifications Allowed" section permitted everything allowed for Group A. For forced induction, engine capacity was treated as 1.4 times its actual size. For Wankel rotary engines, capacity was twice the volume between the combustion chamber's maximum and minimum. Turbine engines used a formula involving high pressure nozzle area and pressure ratio. Few restrictions existed on technology, design, or materials; fiberglass bodywork appeared in the Ford RS200, and space frame chassis were common even when mass-produced consumer equivalents existed, like the Peugeot 205 T16 or Lancia Delta S4. By lowering the homologation minimum from 400 cars in Group 4 to 200, FISA let manufacturers build specialized rear-wheel or four-wheel drive homologation specials without the financial burden of large-scale production.

Rallying

During 1982, the first year of the new groups, existing Groups 1–4 were still permitted in the World Rally Championship. Although some Group B cars entered from the first round in Monte Carlo, none made a podium that season. Audi's Quattro, still essentially a Group 4 car, carried Hannu Mikkola to the driver's title in 1983. Lancia's Group B 037, though rear-wheel drive and less stable than the Quattro on loose surfaces, performed well enough for Lancia to win the manufacturers' title with a win to spare; Lancia did not enter the season finale RAC Rally despite driver Walter Röhrl being in contention for the drivers' title. Opel replaced their Ascona with the Group B Manta 400, and Toyota built a new Celica-based car; both were rear-wheel drive and successful in national rallying but less so at world level, though Toyota won the 1983 Ivory Coast Rally with Björn Waldegård. In 1984, Audi won both manufacturers' and drivers' titles (Stig Blomqvist) but faced new competition from Peugeot's 205 T16, a smaller, lighter four-wheel drive car driven by 1981 champion Ari Vatanen and managed by Jean Todt. A crash prevented the T16's first win, but Peugeot dominated 1985; Vatanen crashed in Argentina and was seriously injured when his seat mounts broke.

Legacy

The Group B era is often considered one of the most competitive and compelling periods in rallying. The combination of lightweight chassis, sophisticated aerodynamics, and high horsepower produced cars whose performance has not been surpassed within their category three decades later. The class has earned the nickname 'Killer B's' among some enthusiasts due to its safety record, while many others refer to the era as the Golden Age of Rallying. Racing video games such as Gran Turismo Sport feature a rally car category called 'Gr. B' as an homage, and the game Art of Rally is set in an alternate universe where Group B was never discontinued.