In my last article I covered the ‘Dream Cars’ category at the 2026 London Concours (which you can read about here: https://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2026/06/11/london-concours-2026-dream-cars/). Today we’re going to be looking at the display of Group A rally cars.
For the 1982 season the FIA rewrote its rulebook and streamlined the way cars in competition were classified from the old numbered groups of past to lettered groups. The categories relevant to this story are Group N – which is a very lightly modified grassroots class, Group A – which is a class for modified production cars, and Group B – which was a much more open prototype class with very little restrictions and a tiny homologation production requirement.
To cut a long story short – Group B became a bit of an arms race as the cars became more and more extreme, but with that extremity came added danger and there were a string of bad accidents.
The final nail in the coffin for Group B were the unfortunate deaths of Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto in the 1986 Tour de Corse on the island of Corsica. Their Lancia Delta S4 came off course and plunged down a sharp, wooded ravine before exploding. Unfortunately, there were no nearby witnesses and the remains of the car were so mangled and charred an official cause of the accident has never been determined.
Following that accident, Group B and Group S (which was set to be its replacement) were discontinued and Group A would become the top set of rules in rallying as it was in touring car racing.
Whilst the spotlight in the period was on Group B, manufacturers were still building and campaigning Group A cars in rallying – such as this Rover SD1 which was the final car to be built by Longbridge Motorsport in 1984.
I must confess I’m not the biggest British Leyland fan, but I do really like these!
A Mk3 RS1600i Ford Escort which was campaigned by Ellen Morgan in Junior Rally.
Prodrive prepared this lovely BMW E30.
In WRC as Group B died manufacturers were quick to develop cars to the Group A ruleset. One such example was this Toyota Celica GT-Four which made it’s WRC debut in 1988. This one was driven by Carlos Sainz.
This Opel Calibra Turbo 4×4 was driven by Stig Blomqvist (of Group B fame).
Subaru campaigned the Legacy from 1989 to 1993 when the Impreza debuted.
The birth of Subaru’s Impreza and Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evo (Evo 3 pictured below) gave rise to my favourite rivalry in rallying history.
When the Impreza debuted in 1993, I also debuted, so I was a little too young to remember seeing the beginning of the rivalry.
Group A was officially dropped in 1997 for the WRC ruleset (you could still enter a Group A built car into a WRC event as late as 2018 though!) which is where my interest in rallying really flourished. The WRC cars of the late 1990s through to the mid 2000s really hold a special place in my heart – especially the blue and yellow Imprezas!
As I mentioned above you could still enter a Group A car into a WRC event up until 2018 and the FIA still use Group A rules for the majority of their regional events as what I assume this 996 911 would have been entered into.
I hope you enjoyed this little look around the Group A Rally Cars at the 2026 London Concours.
There are a lot more classes to cover, so if you would like to see more, please subscribe to my emailing list at the bottom of the page.
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By Richard Francis.
