Toyota announces WRC plans

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Originally Posted by sollitt

I absolutely agree with you John. The AE86 was hugely over-rated, over priced and under powered. It was horrendously expensive to make them go any good (which was great for my business) and they were a dreadfully boring thing to look at.
The new FT86 Toyo baru love child is a hairdressers car.

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Have ya noticed that we agree on a lot of fundamental things?

Except that they can--can mind you---be plenty of fun to watch in the right hands----one needs only set aside some time to watch a fair amount of Finnish F-cup vids...But then again those Finns are crazy and there's not a lot left of the 4AGE save the block and head casting.
I've wondered what led to the surprising popularity in Finland and the only thing I can think is that everything in Finland is horribly expensive so the cost of a 4AGE isn't that much more than say a GM XE or a n.a. YB Ford... Sure they're 2,0 but the F-cup has a progressive weight co-efficient and evidently that seems to work good.

Just across the Eastern Sea in that former powerhouse of rally to the West, in their most popular class (whatever they're calling it now) Grupp H there isn't really a weight per cc and easily half the field in 2300 or 2500cc Volvos, all 8v. AE86 and 4AGE are never seen.

Yeah, probably an age thing.

There were a number of AE86's used to very good effect here also but these were highly specced cars in the hands of exceptional drivers. They've remained popular here because, in the late 80's, we sold our soul to the Japanese used car industry and it was believed more existed here than in the land of the rising sun. On my dealership circa 1990 we struggled to give them away. Today you'd struggle to find a decent one as they've all either succumbed to the brown cancer or been 'sacked' by flat peaked, four fingered, Travis Pastrana clones.
We sold a lot of bits for them separately but never priced up a complete engine however in the early 90's when we ran 2E powered FWD Starlets in RNZ we were able to buy a complete TRD spec engine directly from the Japs @ $60K. By comparison a BDA was about half the price.

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Originally Posted by janvanvurpa

Have ya noticed that we agree on a lot of fundamental things?

Except that they can--can mind you---be plenty of fun to watch in the right hands----one needs only set aside some time to watch a fair amount of Finnish F-cup vids...But then again those Finns are crazy and there's not a lot left of the 4AGE save the block and head casting.
I've wondered what led to the surprising popularity in Finland and the only thing I can think is that everything in Finland is horribly expensive so the cost of a 4AGE isn't that much more than say a GM XE or a n.a. YB Ford... Sure they're 2,0 but the F-cup has a progressive weight co-efficient and evidently that seems to work good.

Just across the Eastern Sea in that former powerhouse of rally to the West, in their most popular class (whatever they're calling it now) Grupp H there isn't really a weight per cc and easily half the field in 2300 or 2500cc Volvos, all 8v. AE86 and 4AGE are never seen.

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Correct me if I`m wrong but isn`t (or wasn`t) the Ae86 a car that was never registrated nor imported to Sweden?
I at least think it is so, and that`s the major reason that the car was never ran in Sweden.
Over here some guys are now even runnning on the Hasselgren built Ae86 engine in the Corollas(revs up to 10500-11000rpm) so they really are quit spectacular to look at and also listen to...

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Originally Posted by AMSS

Correct me if I`m wrong but isn`t (or wasn`t) the Ae86 a car that was never registrated nor imported to Sweden?
I at least think it is so, and that`s the major reason that the car was never ran in Sweden.
Over here some guys are now even runnning on the Hasselgren built Ae86 engine in the Corollas(revs up to 10500-11000rpm) so they really are quit spectacular to look at and also listen to...

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Mitsubishi Gallants and Evos, Celica ST165, 185, 205, Focus WRC were just some of the cars that were never imported in to "grannlandet till västerut'' "officially" either. I don't know, I had moved to here in the distant corner of USA by '81 and was busy kicking a lot of butt in my trusty Saab 96 with the mighty V4, and build Opels for the smarter guys here. But there have been plenty of those in the woods..

Were there that many imported to Finland back then?

See somehow, rugged individuals living in a koja somewhere where winter is 7 months of the year, speak a language impossible to speak, and ever more impossible to understand somehow manage to get enough parts and do the mods needed to have fields full of just really quite hot rally cars....so f the Finns can do it, what can't others where maybe there's snow only 2 months or only 2-3 meters, who speak language spoken by more than just a few others?

And yeah they way you guys do it with Toyotas and F+cup in general has become famous even over here in the land of Kenvis Blockstarna and where entries are often over 55% Blue Subaru clones.

Toyota to build Yaris RRC - autoklub.pl

Quite a few interesting details about TMG-funded Yaris RRC (S2000 1.6T) in the above mentioned article:
- according to TMG's Director of Business Operations Rob Leupen, 1.6T Global Engine has been in testing since January,
- chassis #1 of the S2000-spec car should be ready by Autumn,
- first tests planned for the beginning of 2013,
- homologation planned for mid 2013,
- they're planning to actually make money on the project (how many cars will they need to sell to accomplish that?).
- they chose to built RRC, instead of R4T, because of a lower cost of the program, and more opportunities to sell the car.

Also, it has been said that the decision to enter WRC with a factory team will be made by TMC, not by TMG. Which is rather obvious :) Regardless of a WRC campaign, Yaris RRC will be ready for the 2014 season.

My understanding is that a Yaris S2000 2.0 non-turbo car is being built by Toyota Motorsport as we speak and will run in the South African rally championship next year. The team building it is the same team that made the Dakar Nissans and this year's Toyota Hilux Dakar car. Could be a trial run for the chassis?

Is it a sponsored by Toyota's headquarters or a one-off by the South African branch?

Which Toyota motorsport do you mean? I guess SA?

I have read here on the forum that n/a s2000 cars are no longer homologated.

Trying to make money when building a new car based on old rules doesn't look like a very good business plan to me, so let's hope for an R5 car.

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Originally Posted by Gregor-y

Is it a sponsored by Toyota's headquarters or a one-off by the South African branch?

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I suppose it is just a standalone project by the private belgium preparator Overdrive mentioned above.

I meant Toyota Motorsport South Africa, which is actually a private team now. Complicated. In South Africa you can still homologate a car to the "old" non-turbo S2000 rules, which is why we have the new shape Polo S2000 car here. It's a just a SA homologation, not an international one. But the chassis will be basically the same so it could be a bit of a development trial linked to Toyota worldwide. Not the first time things like that have happened. The Toyota Corolla WRC cars were based on the model we were running during the early 90s. VW Germany are paying VW SA to run Hans Weis Jr in our championship this year for possible inclusion in the WRC program. There is a lot more links between the WRC and us in deep dark Africa than you people like to think. ;)