85.000€ for those stuff in picture ?
Pure robbery :(
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85.000€ for those stuff in picture ?
Pure robbery :(
Another class born dead...
Is it? I'm not really aware about motorsport prices. Could someone give me an estimate for the cost of such an engine? Gearbox? Differentials? I know axles like that cost quickly a couple of 1000 euros each. Fueltank will be expensive too.
But again, not sure about usual prices for the more complex parts.
In such a low-scale production things are definitely more expensive, but there seems to be too much air in that price. They did not invent a bicycle...i`m not even sure if they designed new parts entirely or just borrowed from some production cars. Engine was PSA`s i believe? Add the price of a donor car ( lets say, it`s brand new from the dealership), rebuilding it, good suspension and the price is ~150k. Quite hard to find clients from hobby-drivers in national championships or developing young drivers, who need to be minimally in a R5 to show themselves.
Oreca slashed 20% off the FIA kit price. They could probably have taken 40% off and still have numbers well into the blues.
Lets do an example n how it could be done on a budget.
A used Ford Fiesta Mk7 can be bought for 5000€.
A bodyshop tuner can easily make changes to the body to take onboard the Oreca kit. Maybe 10-15 000€
Then we have the suspension. Not sure how much a set of 3 way Reigers as used on the R2 cost, maybe 8-10 000€.
4wd system after strict FIA rules, fully passive, and simple.
Had we continued down the road of using a tuning firm, and letting them building the car ready to eat an spec engine from Oreca.
Maybe a car could be had for 50-60 000€.
This is done in rallycross all the time, and keeps prices down. You need to keep local tuners alive!
R4 should be a class for talent development in private teams that want to drive a 4wd on a budget. Let the factory people have R5 as their playground.
Honestly, a 4wd rally car supposed to run in national and international rally series for what costs now a R2 sounds totally unrealistic...besides, 8 or 10 years ago you couldn’t buy a top N4 for less than 120.000€ and a new R4 Evo or Impreza were costing quite more than that.
The price cut on Oreca kit is a positive move and if national tuners offer their final models for 150.000€ (still 100.000€ less than a R5) there would be a market for R4, especially if importers and dealers from brands currently not involved in rally see it as a chance to get into the sport.
R4 is having a slow birth; let's hope it'll eventually succeed!
Except that N4 was hugely popular. It was a car you could buy from a dealership, get groceries, go to work, practice in clubman events in the weekends, before gradually turning it into a high spec (or not so high spec) . N4, with what you could tackle RC2 and compete for the overall victory in local championships, atleast against several competitors in your class. None of that is possible with a R4.
Come on, how many rally N4’s were also used as every day cars, even low spec ones?
R4 is a good concept and besides allowing private tuners to get an important role (they’re the cars builders) it also allows brands unable to develop R5 or WRC programs to be involved in rally, through their importers and dealers.
Having a single supplier for the kit wasn’t a smart move, but there’s room for this new category both national and internationally, once the cars are cheap to maintain and cost a fraction of current 4wd rally cars.
If private tuners get massively into it and start competing to take costumers choice, R4 can become a success and help to develop the sport. Fingers crossed!
Problem for N4 (and old R4) was/is that there is only 2 brands Mitsu and Subaru. Others were also homologated but 99,9% did choose 2.