Quote Originally Posted by WRCStan View Post
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.

Quote Originally Posted by WRCStan View Post
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.

Quote Originally Posted by WRCStan View Post
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.