Quote Originally Posted by AndyRAC View Post
It took a while for Mitsubishi to get their act together in regards to showcasing their rally/ road cars. Here in the UK, none pf the first 5 Lancer Evo were officially imported. You had to get a 'grey import'. The 6 was the first one to be officially sold, you wonder what took them so long?

As for the VW effort, well it wasn't a surprise. One only had to look at the Audi efforts in Sportscars - they were fully committed, financially and in resources. In fact, the LMP effort was an R&D programme as opposed to marketing. If VW took the WRC programme anywhere near as seriously, (and why wouldn't they?) then everybody was in trouble, including Citroen. And their first year with the Fabia was clear evidence how committed they were.

If you want to succeed, then you have to be 'all in' - no half measures.
That’s exactly right, Audi have probably been the best exponent of how to use motorsport activity over the last 40 years, everything they have done has had a strategic value whether it be marketing or R&D, and as you say they never mess about. The money that was being spent by the group on WEC with Audi & Porsche was said to be astronomical, and VW were rallying at that time also.
Citroen obviously did a great job when they came to WRC, spent lots of money and ended up dominating, but I always felt they didn’t appear to capitalise on it as much as they could have, perhaps living in the UK I didn’t see the best of their marketing but they didn’t do it to launch a sporty range or anything like that, in fact they seemed to almost do the opposite.