Thread: Prodrive Mini WRC

Originally Posted by N.O.T

i just cannot accept the fact that factory teams would give away their technical knowledge that easy in the old times, while now they control their private entries as they wish...

Now they want to have all the package under control. By one side they mantain the know-how on his hands (the competition is hard and expensive), by other hand they earn some extra millions doing the work that was done in the past by the privat teams (putting private drivers running).

The technology nowadays is very far expensive and complyex that decades ago, and some of the issues discussed here ahave to do with it.

Originally Posted by JAM

Now they want to have all the package under control. By one side they mantain the know-how on his hands (the competition is hard and expensive), by other hand they earn some extra millions doing the work that was done in the past by the privat teams (putting private drivers running).

The technology nowadays is very far expensive and complyex that decades ago, and some of the issues discussed here ahave to do with it.

As long as the rally cars run among ordinary vehicles on public roads, they must meet all requirements to get the numberplates. This responsibility also falls on FIA. There is a big difference in building / customizing a car to Gr R, N, or the old A regulations, than to allow anyone to build a WRC car. Remember: the greatest fool is not born yet.
I seem to remember that if you wanted to build a kit car yourself, you had to use body parts that were only produced by the factory. For safety reasons of course.

Originally Posted by JAM

Now they want to have all the package under control. By one side they mantain the know-how on his hands (the competition is hard and expensive), by other hand they earn some extra millions doing the work that was done in the past by the privat teams (putting private drivers running).

The technology nowadays is very far expensive and complyex that decades ago, and some of the issues discussed here ahave to do with it.

Maybe the cars of the past that (I guess) are much less complicated (like with engine mapping, etc) and a privateer could more easily replicate the performance of the factory cars? And IMO Sollit is correct and results dont lie. But NOT mentions the "straight fight", maybe with the bigger stages back then far more could happen than now, and perhaps the misfortune of the factory cars with punctures etc on the huge stages may have handed the win to a privateer in second place.

Maybe if we saw some of the sprints (IE shorter SS's) stage times then we could compare them better, or maybe that is the subject for another topic

Originally Posted by Coach 2

As long as the rally cars run among ordinary vehicles on public roads, they must meet all requirements to get the numberplates. This responsibility also falls on FIA. There is a big difference in building / customizing a car to Gr R, N, or the old A regulations, than to allow anyone to build a WRC car. Remember: the greatest fool is not born yet.
I seem to remember that if you wanted to build a kit car yourself, you had to use body parts that were only produced by the factory. For safety reasons of course.

I think you didn't understand the meaning of "package".

I made reference to package as build, prepare and sell the renting services.

As you see, Ford and Citroen have their own B-Team to privateers. In the past, there were a lot of b-teams, but all independent from the manufacturer/Developper.

Mini has a B-team (WRC Team Mini Portugal), but is not part of the manufacturer representative/developper (Prodrive), and is seen by everybody the kind of treatment that this B-Team receives from the developer. Receives crap material, and crap know-how. And receives also the evoluitins very late (Sordo had the 01B version in Portugal, but it seems Armindo will have to wait some months to have it).

The example of Mini is perfect of how things are done nowadays.

Let's not become overly philosophical about this. The reason the drivers in the examples I gave won events in privately run cars had nothing to do with the length of the stages or how unsophisticated the cars were. It was simply because they were top works drivers, at the top of their game, and they were using gear that was the equivalent of the best available at the time, often in partnership with, or representing, the works team.
Their mention was purely to demonstrate that in past era private teams could, and did, avail themselves of the same specification equipment as used by the works teams ... and it's not a situation that was limited to the 70's & 80's.
Imagine if you can what the WRC might look like today if, for the past decade, those with the wherewithall to fund a private WRC assault were able to access the very latest full spec machinery in which to sit some of the top drivers who are presently without a seat.

Originally Posted by sollitt

Imagine if you can what the WRC might look like today if, for the past decade, those with the wherewithall to fund a private WRC assault were able to access the very latest full spec machinery in which to sit some of the top drivers who are presently without a seat.

The answer is obvious: The developers/manufacturer wouldn't receive so much money from rents.

Originally Posted by JAM

The answer is obvious: The developers/manufacturer wouldn't receive so much money from rents.

Not necessarilly at all. Anyone with the wherewithall to fund a private WRC campaign is already an achiever, a winner. Winners want to be in the main game. They don't settle for 2nd best or to be "the best of the rest". It could well be that, rather than reduce their earnings, opening the accessability up might enhance their business.

Originally Posted by sollitt

Well believe it, because that was reality. But it wasn't always about giving away their technical knowledge. More here's the components, see what you can make of them. And sometimes the advancements and information flow worked backwards. For example, I may be mistaken but I seem to recall it was Andy Dawson who developed the single leaf spring and coil over shock for RS1800 and Boreham homologated it.

Sollitt, You are seeing the very reason I find this forum much more pleasant using the ignore fuction for the Greek guy who does NOT know anything that is NOT easy to find on the monitor in the lab he lives in, which presumably he's busy surfing the net and NOT researching whatever he supposed to be researching.

I know that the manufacturers shared parts and knowhow and connections, you know it, anybody who was around even as a fan from the 70s rigth on to the introduction of the "World Rally Car" subset of Group A--and maybe more pointedly, the ascendency of Dave richards marketing model ie Prodrive...
I have downstairs 6-7 large blueprints I got maybe 9 years ago when i was building a Ford Cosworth BDG for a guy over hear. Factory prints with ever detail and measurement and setting to make the then normal 252 bhp... I have several copies of the wonderful book "Ford Escort Rally Preparation"

when was a gem of a book....which now, anybody who is interested, can find hosted all over them place
Ford Escort Rally Preparation

Ford gave away a mountain of detailed information on every part you could think of, and better they explained what things mean. And they did that with the Escort book from the mid/late 70s, the book "How to to prepare the Sierra for Motorsport" by mid '88, supplements for the 4x4 Sapphire in GpA or GpN by 1990, for the escort Cosworth by '93, again in both GpA and N, the F2 RS2000.
Spring rates, damper rates, ride height, brake disc sizes, master cylinder sizes, alignment setting front and rear, how to do that on GpN cars, ideal diff settings and where to send the GKN Visco-drive diffs in Solihull to get them set right for gravel or tarmac right down to the telephone number and contact (Barra, now at Barra Motorsport in nearby Bromsgrove, Worcs----this contact from 20+ years ago I've supplied to poor bastids stuck with those modern Misterbitchi and Sub-a-rats who are adrift with no information here in Fortress America)
And the funny thing is all this valuable, detailed information I had long before I had a Ford. It was detailed and rich enough to apply the knowledge to other cars in build techniques, and suspension, gearing etc...

For my rally days I had decided to do the mighty Saab 96 V4 as i was running a specialty business centered on those wonderful cars and for information I simply called old friends at Trend AB on Kungsholmstrand in Stockholm and asked if there was any built info and parts list...they made a call or 2 and 10 days later a fat packet of over 200 pages of detail engine build, set up, chassi mods, strenthening instructions, all the various close ratio gearkits and final drives, EVERYTHING you could imagine---and when I called to the nice guy who had sent it (he had been in Competition Department until the factory shut it down at the end of 1980) He gave me the telephone and fax number for the guy who had been the engine builder for all the glory days from Eric Carlsson till the end....who now is a good friend who I stayed with a couple of times including a month once after a silly divorce (My friend has a nice flat above the shop and he said "You stay here for a month. Well screw with V4s in the day and drink and talk about rally in the evening and not think about divorce....man can he drink!)
When working on Opels, same thing, "Call this guy, he does development work for Opel, and he thinks he speaks Swedish". Very friendly, very happy to discuss detail and show "tricks of the trade" (the guy is Norwegian and speaks a mix of Norwegian, German, Swedish and English. Thank God I do pretty good job faking Norwegian and passable German)
VW, same thing, hundred of pages of set up, assembly etc...contact numbers to people in the loop..

How can you possibly explain the details of what actually occured and what the norm WAS working in and around real cars to a creature who probably would NOT know the difference between a Subaru crank and a Ford crank if you smashed him over the head with it...

That is why I maintain EVERYTHING here is basically "pub talk".
man you have more patience than I (or maybe I'm just tired after making chips all afternoon in the machine shop for a kit to mount Toyota Supra rear LSD diffs into US market Sierras---so we can buy short ratio final drives for under USD 200, and its 25c in the shop.

Good on you John. I don't know whether it's patience, tenacity or stupity (I should be doing something more productive).

Anyway, I too have one of the Ford preparations books and a catalogue of all Ford Motorsport parts, which I obtained in about 1979, packed away somewhere in the archives ...
such was the availability of the information.

Sometime in 1978 a rather large & loud renowned car and engine builder, with whom I was quite well acquainted, from a little place called Paraparaumu (NZ) arrived on the doorstep
of DTV HQ (Shepreth?) wanting to know the intricacies of the works Chevette rally cars as he was charged with the task of building two for NZ's Dealer Team effort.
He wasn't initially warmly received, not because he was considered competition but rather because they weren't convinced he knew what he was doing.
The story has it that whilst debating his credentials he overheard a conversation between two DTV engineers mulling a problem they'd been unable to solve for some time.
Muscling in on the conversation our man offered a solution which proved to be the answer to their problem.
The welcome mat immediately went out and following an intense 3 or 4 days of open demonstration and disclosure, Peter flew home with all of the photos, blueprints and data required to replicate
the works car in it's entirety together with a suitcase full of 'unobtainable' parts.
When a full works car was sent for Airikala to contest RNZ in '79, that car remained in NZ afterward for use in our national series. Just another example of the open co-operation of the time.

Didn't some Ford dealerships have RS parts for sale that could be put on your car, for use in Rallying? I'm pretty sure they did. Imagine that now.....[] okay, maybe not.

Originally Posted by sollitt

Not necessarilly at all. Anyone with the wherewithall to fund a private WRC campaign is already an achiever, a winner. Winners want to be in the main game. They don't settle for 2nd best or to be "the best of the rest". It could well be that, rather than reduce their earnings, opening the accessability up might enhance their business.

Are you saying me that a private team (like some that we have in Europe) weren't able to do the same that the MSport B-Team is doing or Citroen JWRT? You're completely wrong.

If you look at Ostberg team, you see that when a manufacturer releases decent material and know-how to a good team, that team is able to do an excelent job. Ostberg already won a rally this year. Of course that Adapta Team has no chance to have a second car.

Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

Sollitt, You are seeing the very reason I find this forum much more pleasant using the ignore fuction for the Greek guy who does NOT know anything that is NOT easy to find on the monitor in the lab he lives in, which presumably he's busy surfing the net and NOT researching whatever he supposed to be researching.

it is really sad that you failed at what you did as a rally driver, mechanic ,rally florist or whatever your job/hobby was is and you like to make things personal to abandon your inferiority complex, it is even sadder that you are old enough now so no more dreams just facing reality for the rest of your life 50.000 miles away from home...

but it is ok.... just think that for every succesfull person at whatever they do, there are at least 10.000 of people like you...so you you are not alone.

you really want to go personal with a person you will never know and probably do not want to ?? over the interwebs ??

meh...not very wise for your age.

Originally Posted by JAM

Are you saying me that a private team (like some that we have in Europe) weren't able to do the same that the MSport B-Team is doing or Citroen JWRT?

No, I'm not saying that at all. How do the cars used by the M-Sport B team & Citroen JWRT compare to those used by Latvala & Loeb?

Originally Posted by sollitt

No, I'm not saying that at all. How do the cars used by the M-Sport B team & Citroen JWRT compare to those used by Latvala & Loeb?

They are not the same, but with exceptions. Ogier won Portugal in 2010 with a JRT car. Duval had a Stobart car some years agor with top factory specs. Ostberg had a Stobart car in Sweden 11 top level (by other reasons)

It's a question of a manufacturer want or not. And when they want, they put the private cars at the same levels. But today, even the private cars are run by the manufacturers.

Originally Posted by N.O.T

it is really sad that you failed at what you did as a rally driver, mechanic ,rally florist or whatever your job/hobby was is and you like to make things personal to abandon your inferiority complex, it is even sadder that you are old enough now so no more dreams just facing reality for the rest of your life 50.000 miles away from home...

but it is ok.... just think that for every succesfull person at whatever they do, there are at least 10.000 of people like you...so you you are not alone.

you really want to go personal with a person you will never know and probably do not want to ?? over the interwebs ??

meh...not very wise for your age.

No, what is sad is that some Glollum-like creature blathers and spews thousands and thousands of words based on a totally imagined foundation and then worse exhibits his canyon like, miles wide, miles deep lack of knowledge by arguing with the very people who can help him understand how wide and deep his lack of knowledge is---even if it is like throwing a handful of sand into the Atlantic hoping to fill the Mid-Atlantic Rift.
I didn't fail at those things you listed, I did just what I chose to do, no shame in doing what I did, and do, and no shame in getting criticized by somebody who in the context of Motosport, is NOT even a village driver, NOT even a village co-driver, NOT even a guy who air's up the tires for a village team, and from the daily hate you spew, obviously NOT even a spectator except once a year when they let you out on parole. Your words weigh NOThing...

Now if you are NOT a real 1005 keyboard jckey you will apologize to the poor weary forum members for talking crap that originated NOwhere other than your overactive imagination, and from insulting members.


Back to "ignore: NOTthing"

Originally Posted by tommeke_B

I think Sweden 2011 was one of the only events where factory and private cars were so equal... As it was the first event for all.

@ N.O.T. and janvanvurpa: You can do personal things through PM also...
@ janvanvurpa: You seem to be NOT so good in ignoring NOT

When was the last time we had a decent AND active moderator here?

My almost neighbor from Roselare, we can only try. but people use the "quote" function and then almost with not intend, we see crazy and absurd things being said. A decent sense of respect for the efforts of those who years past built and serviced and drove in events and a decent respect for the truth, nearly demands that a person speaks up..or the truth and history will be lost.

It might be approximately if you read somewhere --written by somebody who had never been near your country--"They didn't have the same beer for everybody in Belgium back then, and its alway been natural in Belgium that they give the best beer to the works beer drinkers. And they don't have good fritjes in Belgie either"
Something like that would probably make you try to set the record straight out of respect for the truth.

So, anything new in this Prodrive case?

Originally Posted by N.O.T

it is really sad that you failed at what you did as a rally driver, mechanic ,rally florist or whatever your job/hobby was is and you like to make things personal to abandon your inferiority complex, it is even sadder that you are old enough now so no more dreams just facing reality for the rest of your life 50.000 miles away from home...

but it is ok.... just think that for every succesfull person at whatever they do, there are at least 10.000 of people like you...so you you are not alone.

you really want to go personal with a person you will never know and probably do not want to ?? over the interwebs ??

meh...not very wise for your age.

Originally Posted by N.O.T

i just cannot accept the fact that factory teams would give away their technical knowledge that easy in the old times, while now they control their private entries as they wish...

If you consider the rules at the time you will find that easy to accept.

In the "old times" any driver could score points for a manufacturer. That means that the pilot finishing in the highest position for one manufacturer would score points for that manufacturer. It didn't matter if it was a factory or a private entry. This rule was on until the early 90s.

So official teams could took advantage from giving all the technicall knowledge to private teams. And from 1973 to 1978 the WRC was only a manufacturer championship, there was no pilot championship.

Nowadays we have a team championship (which IMHO was another FIA mistake) so M-Sport, Stobard or Adapta cars do not score points for Ford but for their own team!