Quote Originally Posted by WRCStan View Post
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.
I'm aware of the historical definition, I just didn't think anyone would still use it today. Last time I saw (on ewrc-results) a rally dividing cars into touring and great touring classes, it was probably from the 60's. So a touring car is a regular road legal car, like almost all vehicles we see on the road? Pretty sure in many other languages if you say touring car, it means exclusively a race car such as TCR nowdays.

Quote Originally Posted by WRCStan View Post
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.
You didn't mention them, you described them, if you meant in 2027+ rally championship should allow vehicles that aren't road legal and don't resemble road/touring cars. And that goes beyond the official manufacturer vs tuner difference. Audi had a buggy for Dakar, if they entered it without making a road version, it would still be a buggy to me.

I don't think you're wrong for thinking that tuners or non official manufacturers can build a rally car. I think you're wrong in considering something like a McRae R4, which is not a road car and never had any type of production except for cross country rally costumers, a rally car that should be allowed to take part in rally championships. To me, that could bring in the future companies like let's say Red Bull, making their own purpose-made vehicle exclusively to tackle WRC, which is a sight I hope I'll never see.
If, in theory, we get things like AP4 or the Swedish Mirage R5, I'd be happy to welcome them. In practice, I doubt it's so simple.