How bonkers Group B replacements eluded the WRC

Knockhill's not the first place that comes to mind when you think of a global car giant developing a cutting-edge rally car.

But that's where Toyota Team Europe ended up in the mid-1980s; Fife found favour in an attempt to keep Cologne's secret safe. That secret was codenamed 222D. It was Toyota's first foray into four-wheel drive rallying - an MR2-based Group S car.

That's right, Group S. Not Group B.

It might have been Group B, but when Group S regulations were confirmed as applying from January 1, 1988, Ove Andersson considered this the direction for his all-new mid-mounted car.

The original Group S regulations were, at best, sketchy (hardly surprising for an administration led by Jean-Marie Balestre) and stated a minimum of 10 cars had to be built, signifying the arrival of true prototype rallying at the category's highest level. Power output? Undetermined. Guess what happened...

In October 1985 FISA's executive committee gave Group S the green light from '88. What was supposed to follow was constructive discussion between the manufacturers and FISA's president of the technical commission Gabriel Cadringher regarding what was needed to make this work on a regulatory level.

What happened was all the individual technical directors took the rules apart and came up with their own agenda. Stalemate. Hard and fast regulations were still absent when Henri Toivonen's Lancia Delta S4 went off the side of a Corsican mountain on May 2 1986.

Just prior to the event on which Toivonen lost his life, Lancia's drivers were testing its evolution of the Delta S4, the ECV: Experimental Composite Vehicle. This thing was incredibly light courtesy of a carbon-Kevlar shell and so powerful with not one but two turbochargers - one of which boosted at lower revs and replaced the supercharger in the original S4.

The Tifosi loved a typically Italian take on rallying's faster future, but the ECV was a step too far. I was lucky enough to see an ECV wheeled out and driven by Paolo Andreucci across a San Remo stage a few years ago. It was insane. It brought genuine Formula 1 speed and power to the mountains, but still it came with contemporary suspension that simply couldn't cope and couldn't keep the car in a straight line or planted on planet earth.

Responsible for the revolution, Audi was left behind in the second half of Group B's four years. Its front-engined Quattro - even in bewinged E2 form - was no match for the mid-engined far more bespoke machinery coming out from France and Italy.

The German response was the Quattro RS 002. Kept secret for years, it was only well after rallying's darkest period that Ingolstadt actually admitted the thing existed. Which it did, because it tore up Lord March's drive at the Goodwood Festival of Speed earlier in the summer.

If you'd ever wondered what would happen when a rally car designer was given a clean sheet of paper, Audi answered in emphatic fashion

Outwardly, it bore little resemblance to the original Quattro. Little resemblance? Actually, it looked nothing like the Audi's Hannu Mikkola and Stig Blomqvist used to lift consecutive world titles in 1983 and '84. If you'd ever wondered what would happen when a rally car designer was given a clean sheet of paper, Audi answered in emphatic fashion.

The in-line five cylinder engine was mid-mounted and capable of close to 1000bhp. Two things caught the eye at the front of the car: two enormous scoops for air exiting the radiator and intercooler and the lack of any visible aerodynamics.

It was all under the 'bonnet' and well ahead of its time. The airflow under the bonkers skin of the RS 002 must have been sufficiently trick to balance the downforce coming from what was arguably the biggest wing ever seen on a rally car at the rear. If Ingolstadt was missing a couple of ironing boards in the mid-eighties, I have an idea where they might have gone...

Meanwhile, roaring through Duffus Dip around the same time was a space age MR2 with a two-litre engine (the same engine that would later power Group A Celicas) with a monstrous blower bolted to the side. Such was the power of this thing that, during its time in the Kingdom of Fife, countless gearboxes were blown apart and not even a switch from alloy to steel bellhousing could contain the problem.

Within the corridors of power in Paris, there remained concern. Cadringher forced a rethink on aero when he was presented with what Peugeot and Audi thought acceptable tools for downforce on their respective E2 models in 1985.

It was around then that the seeds of Group S change were sown. If you wanted a turbo, then you had to run a 1.2-litre engine and if you wanted natural aspiration, you could only displace 2400cc.

Slicks, wings and Avgas cocktails would all be a thing of the past.

In an effort to stick to a deal made at the famous Casablanca agreement in 1982, when FISA said Group B would run until the end of 1990, it was suggested that this could still be the case - but evolutions of the cars would be canned. The teams would have to stick to the specification of the 200 cars originally homologated into the class from 1983 onwards.

That explains Peugeot's laissez-faire attitude to Group S through the 1986 season. Peugeot Sport director Jean Todt focused on extending his team's dominance with its current car, safe in the knowledge that when push came to shove and he had to strip the wings and fancy bits off the E2, the original T16 would still be a strong proposition for three more years.

But then came Corsica. And the loss of Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresto in the worst possible conditions.

A day later, Balestre sat down in a press conference in Ajaccio to talk about the future.

FISA's press release, timed 1500 on May 3, read:

"As from January 1, 1987

1: The CANCELLATION of future Special Rally Group (Group S).

2: The PROHIBITION in all rallies of sports cars (Group B), except models of less power (in this group) than indicated on a list which will be drawn up by FISA.

2 The PROHIBITION of certain materials in the construction of cars of all groups.

4: THE CREATION OF A NEW WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP for Drivers and for Makes reserved exclusively for TOURING CARS (Group A) - of which 5000 examples must have been constructed."

Everything changed. For a while. In October 1986, FISA relented and agreed to run Group S in the limited form outlined above.

It's true that a number of manufacturers had started work on their Group S projects. Opel had found the rule it was looking for and a cost-effective way to the top table. A four-wheel drive Kadett powered by the Manta 400 engine (with the addition of a Sprintex Supercharger) was the answer. Andrew Wood gave this car, albeit in Astra 4S form, its only British outing on the Audi Sport Rally in 1985.

And they were coming from the east too with Skoda, Lada and Moskvitch all reckoned to be ready to seize this opportunity.

Trouble was, FISA had brought forward the start date for the new, new world of Group S to January, 1987... the January 1987 that was just three months away. As far down the road with their motors as these manufacturers were, there was little chance they could have everything ready in three months.

"It is like getting off a rocket and onto a bicycle"Walter Rohrl's co-driver Christian Geistdorfer

Most of the Group S hardware that had come off clean sheets of paper could have been tempered to fit given more time. But the moment had gone. Typically, Peugeot was ahead of the curve and its new-era T16 was coming good. Such was the fury from Velizy that legal action was taken against FISA.

But it changed nothing.

Group A and modified showroom motors arrived. How did they compare to Group B competition and early Group S testing? Walter Rohrl's co-driver Christian Geistdorfer couldn't have put it better after stepping out of a 200 Quattro.

"It is," he said, "like getting off a rocket and onto a bicycle."

The game had changed and Group S was killed before it even had the chance to breathe new life into rallying.