WRC mainclass from 2027

[WRCStan]

A Rally1 car is neither a buggy nor a touring car, it's a rally car.

Fully agree!

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.

Disagree! Rally cars are road cars, they legally have to be.

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.

Historically, a touring car was used to go touring. You take your friends and family and luggage and go somewhere nice for leisure and pleasure. It's from way back when there was no commute, no suburbs, no out of town shopping centres or weekly family shop at the supermarket, no motorways or even much tarmac. If you needed to be somewhere you took the train. Other options at the time were runabout, towncar, limousine, cab, doctor's car, etc which had different build qualities around those purposes.

~100 years ago, FIA considered three types of cars for motorsport purposes: Racing Cars, Sports cars, and Touring Cars. Rallying, being a touring road sport and not requiring speed originally, mainly used TCs but began to allow sports cars (and GTs) more in the 40s/50s/60s, and as special stage rallying took off. Then in the late 80s all cars had to be four seater touring cars in Groups A and N. Then Group R rally cars were invented but they had to be based on Group A touring cars out of a tradition and everybody pretends they've been modified, like 'there were rear seats in Rossel's C3 but we ripped them out for the rally and we will put them back' (I'm being dramatic).

At least the Rally1 regs do not even mention touring cars. They are defined as 'single example competition cars' but must have a 'series production reference car' for what it looks like. There's no evidence to say that has to be a touring car, and the Puma isn't even homologated in Group A.

This name 'touring car' dropped off in English but stayed on in French, so what used to be called The British Saloon Car Championship became the British Touring Car Championship to match FIA words in the 1980s. (Maybe they had to be Group A? Supertourers and all that?) So there's no surprise if you are an English speaker and associate Touring cars with racing, but this is a poor choice from those original 3. You're not going touring in a TCR, it's a racing car and not road legal. And if you don't call the Civic 'road car' a touring car, it's because it's a stupid name for most people's purposes, but at least you can go touring in it if you wanted to.

A Buggy is a...

Honestly, I didn't mention this and you can check. I don't need an explanation. I'm describing WRC2027 rules as I understand them and Rally1 because they're the spaceframe example. In construction terms, there's no difference between Rally1 and WRC2027. We've difference in opinion of what a road car is and if you choose to call them buggies, feel free.

So back to discussion, Rally1 being visually based on 'series production cars' but there's no 'series production car manufacturers' interested in WRC. The rules are being changed to allow bespoke rally designs and for 'tuners' to build chasses; I've no idea what they mean by Tuners, because I cannot see what they are 'tuning' as like you suggest a 'tuner' would 'tune' something already existing. I agree with that definition. If you can tell me why I am in the wrong for thinking a small cheese can build a WRC2027 car, I'd be grateful.