Toyota announces WRC plans

[Tomi]

VW Motorsport led by Kris Nissen has nothing to see/do with Skoda IRC or S2000 campaign.

Maybe both will do it.

PSA group has Peugeot Sport and Citroën Sport also.... so VAG group could do similar....

Did not PSA announce a few months ago that Peugeot will focus on track racing and Citroen in rally?

[RICARDO75]

]Skoda is doing only what VAG allows and wants. VAG doesn't need two brands doing the same and it won't have them. Just my opinion...

Skoda and Seat were involved at wrc at the same time until 2000.
But I also know that was in the days when there was more money

[Barreis]

VW is working on 1.6T engine for 2012 so maybe it can be also WRC version..

[m.lowe]

Anymore pics of that Toyota WRC prototype from that magazine

[Rally Hokkaido]

Only a larger one of the same photo on the front cover. It's not a prototype - just a photoshop job based on a photo of the standard next generation Auris.
There's a photo of a standard next generation Auris at the same angle in the article.

Recent posts on this thread have discussed two more points that were in the article. Best Car sugggested that while the Toyota brand would be used in WRC, the Lexus brand would be used in any racing programme (FIA-GT, DTM or Le Mans Series). However, the Toyota spokesman they met stated that the idea of joining the FIA-GT (DTM? Le Mans Series?) had been dismissed as it was not a well known category (by their customer base).

The article then continued about the target market for the Auris (=mainly Europe) and their main rival there, which is VW and its Golf model. It speculated that VW could announce its own WRC programme as early as next week's Rally of Germany. And while the new downsized WRCar regs would seem to suit VW's Polo model, from a marketing point of view the Golf would make better sense as their WRC base car, according to Best Car.

In summary, we have seen before where a car maker's marketing people decide the choice of WRC car (307CC!), not their engineers or competition department and it looks like it will be no different in Toyota's (and VW's?) case.

[m.lowe]

Could you scan the larger one for me please

[A.F.F.]

Did not PSA announce a few months ago that Peugeot will focus on track racing and Citroen in rally?

Plus I remember someone important from PSA saying that Peugeot and Citroen will NEVER compete against each others in rallying again.

But how about privateers or satellite teams.... in case PSA builds a suitable Peugeot ??

[Tomi]

Plus I remember someone important from PSA saying that Peugeot and Citroen will NEVER compete against each others in rallying again.

But how about privateers or satellite teams.... in case PSA builds a suitable Peugeot ??

Not sure, but I belive there wont be any Peugeot rallycars after a while (after 1 year or so), only track racing Peugeots.

[I am evil Homer]

I guess in the PSA case it would depend on whether you could buy the PSA 1.6T engine from the DS3 model on its own and then put it into the 207 shell? But I struggle to think why you'd bother really.

[Barreis]

I hope that some Turan in Peugeot will destroy some works Finns next year.. xd