Quote Originally Posted by WRCStan View Post
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.
So you want rally championships to cease to exist and replace them with... a buggy championship? Like buggies we see in Dakar, such as the MD Optimus buggy, or Extreme E? Because what you're describing don't seem to be rally cars. A championship that uses buggies is not a rally championship, just like a championship that uses motorbikes is not a rally championship. Would be the same as suggesting that touring car series start using single seaters, they wouldn't be touring car series anymore.
The argument of "rally cars have strayed so far from their origins, let's just abandon the concept of rally car altogether and have a rally championship without rally cars" doesn't seem to fix the patient's problem, it eliminates the patient.
Unless you mean that cars made by tuners like the Swedish Mitsubishi Mirage R5 should be allowed to compete, in that case I agree. Could you give some example (real or not) of cars you'd see running?

"going rallying with a 'modified series-production touring car' is dead": 99,9% (probably more) of rally cars in the world are modified series production cars, there are quite big entry lists filled with those all over Europe.