The new FIA WRC-car concept 2017

[Jack4688`]

Yes, but isn't it also true that if you're allowed to use a car that is 3900mm long (as per the 2017 regs) and that, for example, you have a B-segment car that is 3950mm long and a C-segment car that is 4250mm long you would use the shorter one for competitive advantage (assuming the marketing bigwigs said either one is as good, you choose)?

I don't know much about the rules in the early 2000s but wasn't the Peugeot 206 seen as having an advantage by being the shortest and therefore more agile? They even had to homologate a 4000mm long version of the road car over the standard 3830mm car. Length has high-speed stability advantages but still Skoda decided to drop the long Octavia for the short Fabia, thought not with much success...

Point being, nowadays you build a WRC car with your smallest regular passenger car available/possible i.e. VW will choose the Polo over the Golf, the Scirocco wouldn't get a second thought and the Up! is ineligible, same goes with Toyota for Yaris, Auris, GT86, Aygo and Hyundai for i20, i30, Veloster, i10.

[Mirek]

True but in my opinion Scirocco isn't worse car to make WRC from than Polo (quite the opposite). For that reason I think that it's about marketing there. Same with new 5D i20 versus i20 coupé (this is what I don't understand at all). Golf, Auris were too big for current regulations, not only by dimension but also due to weight. It was much harder to get in the weight limit with 1.6T cars than with 2.0 WRC which had more free regulations. On the other hand I think that cars like Up! are too small for proper weight distribution and fitting everything in (including the crew).

[Lundefaret]

I get that space frame cars would probably be cheaper, but we are forgetting where rallying come from... rallying started with a road car body shell that got faster and faster as people started modifying said shells. Top level rallying will lose all it's contact with its grass roots if we went space frame. The fact that we have top level rallying together with national events where you can see the same body shell compete in two different categories and know that both comes from the same production line means that you still retain some level of connection with the real world. Rally cars have to be road registerable after all.

Also I think your magic cure-all cost formula will be ruined by competition pretty soon anyway. Like someone said, it will will probably be more cost efficient with an evolution of the regs rather than a revolution. I am sure the manufacturers would agree with me on that if they would read this.

I could agree in cost cap for components. There you are on to something. More engine power is seriously not a bad thing... I don't know if the aerodynamics are going to make a huge difference, we will see. The parts are so damn flexible anyway that i doubt that they generate much downforce. When I first read the regs and saw the mockup done by wrc promoter, I thought it would look ridiculous but now I am not so sure.

If the cars look anything like the mockups in this thread and around the interwebs they are going to be great! The Polo should start testing in winter so I am sure we will see pictures emerging pretty soon.

I think they reg changes are largely positive although I agree with what others are saying about the active center diff making a reappearance... That I don't believe in. It is going to favor set ups that will have the cars straighter through the corners which is something we want to strive away from (plus the cost issue).

Space framed cars were used in Group B to great effect, so it has a history in rallying.

The challenge now is that the cars (WRC, R5 etc) are so highly developed that starting from a standard car is a problem, rather than a benefit.
Long gone are the days of Group A where You had "mildly" modified road cars out on the stages.

A space frame/purpose built rally car (top level, nationally and internationally) could, if combined with cost caps on components, reduce overall cost of running a said car over a season. Crash damage can be made much cheaper (bodywork, internal dampers etc), it would be much cheaper to have different body styles (makes/models), or to make specialized veichles like the RS200, 6R4 etc.
But I know as well as anyone that this will not happen very likely

One idea is to take a modern World RX car (rallycross), and test it on a rally stage.
Here You have huge power, "simple" construction, and it would be easy to limit damper travel and aerodynamics.
How would that look on a special stage?

The "changes" that will come in 2017 will make the cars look and go a little more like the original WRC cars, except that their decing/layout will be much more similar than the original WRC cars.


The most cost innefective class now i believe is the R3T-class. A Citroen DS3 R3T costs uppwards of 90.000 Eur, is not much faster than an R2, looks boring, and sounds boring. And all tough it is marvelous to drive (I have had the pleassure of testing one), compare that to a Rallycross Lites car, wich is in the same price range, but with 4WD, a mid mounted engine, and 300 HP.(This is not Citroens fault, its just the regulations.)

[itix]

Yes, but isn't it also true that if you're allowed to use a car that is 3900mm long (as per the 2017 regs) and that, for example, you have a B-segment car that is 3950mm long and a C-segment car that is 4250mm long you would use the shorter one for competitive advantage (assuming the marketing bigwigs said either one is as good, you choose)?

I don't know much about the rules in the early 2000s but wasn't the Peugeot 206 seen as having an advantage by being the shortest and therefore more agile? They even had to homologate a 4000mm long version of the road car over the standard 3830mm car. Length has high-speed stability advantages but still Skoda decided to drop the long Octavia for the short Fabia, thought not with much success...

Point being, nowadays you build a WRC car with your smallest regular passenger car available/possible i.e. VW will choose the Polo over the Golf, the Scirocco wouldn't get a second thought and the Up! is ineligible, same goes with Toyota for Yaris, Auris, GT86, Aygo and Hyundai for i20, i30, Veloster, i10.

The 206 I know something about since it is my favorite WRC car ever.

They wanted to return to rallying but had no suitable car over 4 meters that wasn't due to end production (306 wasn't going to be produced anymore) which was the regs for the world rally at the time. They therefor built the 3800 something millimeter 206 in an extra long extended homologation special that was 4000 and a few mm long.

This gave the Peugeot the shortest wheelbase of all cars which made it agile but nervous. It was also said to be pain in the ass to build for Peugeot sport because they could not fit the engine well (among other things) so they had to run the output to the center diff through a bevel gear.

The short wheel base made it a killer on Tarmac but difficult on rough rallies like acropolis which is why it only won once.

As far as I have understood they ran an engine from a 406 and it went out of homologation in 2004. That coupled with other issues which I don't remember (and pressure from the top) meant that they switched to the butt ugly and horribly failed 307 cc and ultimately ended their participation in rally (I am with Grönholm that they should have stayed with the 206).

I even bought a 206 as soon as I got my licence due to that rally car. Currently on my second one now.

[itix]

Space framed cars were used in Group B to great effect, so it has a history in rallying.

The challenge now is that the cars (WRC, R5 etc) are so highly developed that starting from a standard car is a problem, rather than a benefit.
Long gone are the days of Group A where You had "mildly" modified road cars out on the stages.

A space frame/purpose built rally car (top level, nationally and internationally) could, if combined with cost caps on components, reduce overall cost of running a said car over a season. Crash damage can be made much cheaper (bodywork, internal dampers etc), it would be much cheaper to have different body styles (makes/models), or to make specialized veichles like the RS200, 6R4 etc.
But I know as well as anyone that this will not happen very likely

One idea is to take a modern World RX car (rallycross), and test it on a rally stage.
Here You have huge power, "simple" construction, and it would be easy to limit damper travel and aerodynamics.
How would that look on a special stage?

The "changes" that will come in 2017 will make the cars look and go a little more like the original WRC cars, except that their decing/layout will be much more similar than the original WRC cars.


The most cost innefective class now i believe is the R3T-class. A Citroen DS3 R3T costs uppwards of 90.000 Eur, is not much faster than an R2, looks boring, and sounds boring. And all tough it is marvelous to drive (I have had the pleassure of testing one), compare that to a Rallycross Lites car, wich is in the same price range, but with 4WD, a mid mounted engine, and 300 HP.(This is not Citroens fault, its just the regulations.)

I get that it would be cheaper but I am really not a fan of the idea. I don't like the RX cars and I was a fan of the diversity of Group B, but not the space frames or midmounted engines.

To build or buy a customer car as a space frame is slightly more difficult. Smaller teams that run Msports etc would be more dependent on the jig of the mother company in case they crash rather than just straighten the body shell again.

... And it really would distance it from the lower categories. You'd always have amateurs show up in their lower class actual cars that aren't a plastic toy and I don't know about you, but I would feel that those were real cars rather than the space fram thing series it was supporting.

Theoretically, you could take the makings of a wrc or R5 car and stuff or full of showroom interior and you'd have one hell of a shopping car.

In the space fram car, the ikea chairs wouldn't fit for all the scaffolding and the milk would just fall through and never be reachable again.

I feel so much more connected with a car that is actually a body shell than some disused scaffolding...

I agree that your ideas make sense to the wallet and the brain, but it does not to my rally heart.

[Rollo]

I genuinely expected Toyota to run the GT-86 rather than the Yaris upon their return for that very reason!

From what I understand, the ST185 and ST205 Celica GT-Fours were horrible cars for rally work because they were so low slung. I've driven a GT-86 once and it was a very low to the ground car (and a boneshaker). I would hate to be the engineers to work out a different set of geometry needed to raise the ground clearance on the GT-86.

PS: The GT-86 doesn't really deserve that title at all. The Current Corolla is E150 and the GT-86 is not a Corolla. The XP150 Yaris is closer in spirit to AE86 than the Toyobaru is, no matter how good it is.

[Mirek]

As far as I have understood they ran an engine from a 406 and it went out of homologation in 2004. That coupled with other issues which I don't remember (and pressure from the top) meant that they switched to the butt ugly and horribly failed 307 cc and ultimately ended their participation in rally (I am with Grönholm that they should have stayed with the 206).

307 wasn't that bad car like it is remembered. One of the reasons why it failed was switch to Pirelli which had big problems in those times. Remember that 307 WRC became highly successful in the hands if privateers in 2006 and 2007.

[liposh]

Peugeot 307 WRC had very powerful engine. More powerful than Xsara for example (but Xsara was better to setup)

[TWRC]

307 wasn't that bad car like it is remembered. One of the reasons why it failed was switch to Pirelli which had big problems in those times. Remember that 307 WRC became highly successful in the hands if privateers in 2006 and 2007.

Also, given the situation with the drivetrain/gearbox misery, it was almost an overachiever. I think too that if they stayed with Michelin for 2005, they might have been even closer to Citroën than they were.

[Mirek]

At least it has shown PSA that using a gearbox with low number of gears isn't a good idea even if more gears are theoretically redundant. I guess it was one of the reasons why Citroën stayed with 6-speed gearbox even with C4.