WRC mainclass from 2027

[WRCStan]

Please don't suggest I want to see a buggy championship. Is a Rally1 a buggy? Is a Rally1 a touring car?

These new rules allow for bespoke designs by tuners. Do you want to call them buggies because they don't have a Toyota badge on? I'm not going near the word. You are free to call them that, I disagree. Can you tell me the 'tuners' are not manufacturers IF they offer their builds for sale? Why and how?

Yes there are many series-production touring car bodyshells being rallied. They are not modified touring cars - and they're practically all deprecated or on their way. How many common parts are between a C3 on the street and a Rally2?

[WRCStan]

Could you give some example (real or not) of cars you'd see running?

How about a McRae R4 of today, space frame style.

[saco0o]

what about these ones? lol
really cheap, fast, spec ford engines (tho some used Illmor engines in RX?), tube frames and ugly body kits to remember 'road cars"... theres a MercedesISH, the second one is a fiestaISH? or an audiISH? haha something like that. they had another models at some point, also ugly.
just work on that bodykit.

andros trophy series used stuff like that too. french 'division 3' in rallycross also have stuff like that. its cool cuz their engines are on the back, so its like some of those old group b cars where they open the 'back' of the car and its just tubes and the engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9RaepuCtlE

[Sal yet again]

We had this car in the UK back in the early 2000s which would make the ultimate 2027 spec car!

https://youtu.be/ekG6wbaQKlg?feature=shared

Come back Andy Burton your time is now!

[Morte66]

We had this car in the UK back in the early 2000s which would make the ultimate 2027 spec car!

https://youtu.be/ekG6wbaQKlg?feature=shared

Come back Andy Burton your time is now!

As a complete non-expert on the rules side of things, I can confirm that that was a fun car to watch.

Although I wonder how much of that is down to roadside cameras, older suspension giving some bounce, and a bit of sideways. Would a modern version be as fun?

[Sal yet again]

My post was a bit tongue in cheek and as you say for WRC level the refinement needed for such a car would probably remove some of the wow factor. Having said that it is an example of what a "tuner" might be able to produce. My only issue is that rallying has mostly been about manufacturers in the past unlike say sportscars with its number of independent chassis makers and I just wonder how many "tuners" will be able to find the budget to develop and then run cars with good drivers onboard over a worldwide season as the championship moves away from its traditional European base.

[wyler]

What is a manufacturer to you?

I made a list of 10 manufacturers of rally cars that'd be available for sale to the public (hypothetically). They'd all be manufacturers, manufacturing manufacturers' wares. You might say "but I can't buy one". Yes you could. "You don't see anybody driving them on the roads". How often do you see a Rally1/2/3/4/5 being driven?

Lancia built 100 Rally4s already? Great, why not allow low-volume car manufacturers in to that market? Why does there need to be 25,000 similar looking cars of a different construction, different fuel type, sharing little comforts and components... etc.. it doesn't make sense. It would only make sense if Lancia/Stellantis were pouring enough bucks into the FIA coffers, but it appears the manufs are all in crises.



This is a long term reset and transformation for sustainability into the next decades, not a 'how do we scrape through another season with the existing players'. The 'touring car' is dead, going rallying with a 'modified series-production touring car' is dead, and there's zero link between a rally car and 'SUV' mobility vehicle/android phone on wheels.

to me, and to most of people in the rally world, a manufacturer is a company that produces road cars.
but we can also refer to company/entity that builds their own shells, works the same, as the majority of names you did are just tuners, or company/entity that uses others' shells to prepare a race car. in the space frame era, maybe this can change, but till now, i don't see anyone other than a manu producing space frame chassis. (and that works only for rally1, minor category still refers to a legal road car as base.) so, i see the road version of every rally2/3/4/5 being driven, and also we can say that yaris gr and i20n are base model for rally1 ( the puma is a bit different...)

honestly, i don't get all the part about lancia. if u are saying that fia must change the homologation standard, i can agree. anyway, the minimum quantity for rally2 (and lesser) is 2500, not 25000, that is not that far from low volume to me. rally1, as being a space frame doesn't have a minimum quantity.

i don't get also the last part. long term reset and transformation is about the strategy and the direction of the championship, not so much about the technicalities of the car. if an existing car class can fit the strategy, then it's ok, no need to look for a revolution. and as you can see, we were very close to base this "long term reset" simply on the rally2 cars, now it looks like we will have a rally2mod or rally2+ for 2027 on, with balanced performance with the current ones.

[focus206]

Please don't suggest I want to see a buggy championship. Is a Rally1 a buggy? Is a Rally1 a touring car?

A Rally1 car is neither a buggy nor a touring car, it's a rally car. It's probably the furthest you can get to still call it a rally car, since at the very least they resemble a road car.
But I don't know what you mean by touring car, to me a touring car is a Civic TCR. A regular, road going Civic is a road car to me.

These new rules allow for bespoke designs by tuners. Do you want to call them buggies because they don't have a Toyota badge on? I'm not going near the word. You are free to call them that, I disagree. Can you tell me the 'tuners' are not manufacturers IF they offer their builds for sale? Why and how?

A Buggy is a vehicle that is not based on any road car and that doesn't even resemble any road car. You are describing buggies but you don't want to call them buggies. Some called them "protos" in cross country rallying, if you prefer.
What tuners are you talking about? Tuners like Abt Sportsline, that tune road cars and is also a motorsport team? Yes, they're tuners, not a manufacturer.
Prodrive, that developed and run Subaru in WRC and Bentley in GT3? They are tuners... the Prodrive Hunter was also sold as road car, I don't know in how many units, so one could suggest they are a manufacturer too.
MD Rallye Sport or Century, that produce buggies for Dakar? Not tuners in my book. They are manufacturers of buggies, and not car manufacturers. If they would start selling their Optimus and CR6 as road vehicles, I could start calling them car manufacturers.

Yes there are many series-production touring car bodyshells being rallied. They are not modified touring cars - and they're practically all deprecated or on their way. How many common parts are between a C3 on the street and a Rally2?

Yes, they are based on road car bodyshells, which makes them rally cars. Modified touring cars, you mean like group N cars or what? Still plenty of them around, although I agree they will hardly be the future.

[focus206]

How about a McRae R4 of today, space frame style.

There was a project to sell road going McRae R4s, but it was canned after Colin's death. Since that didn't happen, to me a McRae R4 is a buggy/proto.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

What for? There's very low R&D isn't there? Engine and running gear exists, safety cell drawings will exist soon, bodywork frame exists?

Yes but putting them all together in a coherent design with realistic car bodywork and appropriate functioning aero is a different thing altogether.

Plus there's the rule requiring them all to be ICE powered to start with when some may want to be electric or hydrogen or hybrid going forward.

Apart from Toyota, I just dont see it being possible in the timeframe and certainly not if the others want to be competitive and reliable. And none will want to go ahead with all the investment required only to have a car that's slow and look bad.

PS. If we look back to the Group B era where the cars were spaceframe and had a lot of freedom, it still took years for many Manufacturers to develop their car...

1982 Lancia 037
1983 (not s/f) Quattro, Manta, Celica, 911, R5
1984 205T16, Quattro S1
1985 Metro 6R4, Delta S4
1986 Ford RS200