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Group B
Group B was a set of regulations for grand touring (GT) cars used in sports car racing and rallying introduced in 1982 by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Although permitted to enter a GT class of the World Sportscar Championship alongside the faster and more popular Group C prototypes, Group B cars are commonly associated with international rallying during 1982 to 1986, when they were the highest class used in the World Rally Championship (WRC) and regional and national rally championships.
The Group B regulations fostered some of the fastest, most powerful, and most sophisticated rally cars ever built, and their era is commonly referred to as the golden era of rallying. However, a series of major accidents, some fatal, were believed to be caused by their outright speed. There was also a major lack of crowd control at events. After the death of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto in the 1986 Tour de Corse, the FIA banned the group from competing in the WRC from the following season, dropped its prior plans to introduce Group S, and designated Group A as the top class of rally cars with engine limits of 2000 cc and 300 bhp.
In the following years, ex-rally Group B cars found a niche in the European Rallycross Championship until being dropped in 1993. By 1991, the World Sportscar Championship had moved on from Group B and C, with the GT championships formed in the 1990s preferring other classes such as the new GT1. The last Group B cars were homologated in 1993, though the FIA made provisions for national championships and domestic racing until as late as 2011.
In 1982, the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) restructured the production car category of Appendix J of the International Sporting Code to consist of three new groups.
The outgoing Group 1 and Group 2 were replaced with Group N and Group A, for unmodified and modified production touring cars respectively. These cars had to have four seats (although the minimum size of the rear seats was small enough that some 2+2 cars could qualify) and be produced in large numbers. Their homologation requirement was 5000 units in a 12-month period between 1982 and 1992. From 1993, the requirement was reduced to 2500 units.
Group B was for GT cars with a minimum of two seats, redefined as sports grand touring cars in 1986. It combined and replaced Group 3 and Group 4, two grand touring groups already used in rallying, and the production-derived Group 5 silhouette cars used in circuit racing. Group 5 cars had never been permitted in the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers.
The number of cars required for homologation—200—was just 4% of the other groups' requirements and half of what was previously accepted in Group 4. As homologation periods could be extended by producing only 10% of the initial requirement each subsequent year (20 in Group B's case compared to 500 for A and N), the group made motorsport more accessible for car manufacturers before taking the group's technicalities and performance into account. 'Evolutions' could be included within the original homologation without needing to produce a new initial run, allowing manufacturers to tweak various aspects of their competing car within the requirement to produce only 20 'evolved' cars. Together, these homologation rules resulted in Group B 'homologation specials'—extremely rare cars that were only produced to satisfy the homologation quota rather than for sales, if they continued to exist beyond presentation to FIA officials in the first place.
Group B could be used to homologate production sports cars which were ineligible for Group N or A due to not having four seats or not being produced in large enough numbers (such as the Ferrari 308 or the Porsche 911). Furthermore, the low production requirement encouraged manufacturers to use competition-oriented space frames instead of the unibodies typically used in most series-production road cars.
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Group B
Group B was a set of regulations for grand touring (GT) cars used in sports car racing and rallying introduced in 1982 by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Although permitted to enter a GT class of the World Sportscar Championship alongside the faster and more popular Group C prototypes, Group B cars are commonly associated with international rallying during 1982 to 1986, when they were the highest class used in the World Rally Championship (WRC) and regional and national rally championships.
The Group B regulations fostered some of the fastest, most powerful, and most sophisticated rally cars ever built, and their era is commonly referred to as the golden era of rallying. However, a series of major accidents, some fatal, were believed to be caused by their outright speed. There was also a major lack of crowd control at events. After the death of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto in the 1986 Tour de Corse, the FIA banned the group from competing in the WRC from the following season, dropped its prior plans to introduce Group S, and designated Group A as the top class of rally cars with engine limits of 2000 cc and 300 bhp.
In the following years, ex-rally Group B cars found a niche in the European Rallycross Championship until being dropped in 1993. By 1991, the World Sportscar Championship had moved on from Group B and C, with the GT championships formed in the 1990s preferring other classes such as the new GT1. The last Group B cars were homologated in 1993, though the FIA made provisions for national championships and domestic racing until as late as 2011.
In 1982, the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) restructured the production car category of Appendix J of the International Sporting Code to consist of three new groups.
The outgoing Group 1 and Group 2 were replaced with Group N and Group A, for unmodified and modified production touring cars respectively. These cars had to have four seats (although the minimum size of the rear seats was small enough that some 2+2 cars could qualify) and be produced in large numbers. Their homologation requirement was 5000 units in a 12-month period between 1982 and 1992. From 1993, the requirement was reduced to 2500 units.
Group B was for GT cars with a minimum of two seats, redefined as sports grand touring cars in 1986. It combined and replaced Group 3 and Group 4, two grand touring groups already used in rallying, and the production-derived Group 5 silhouette cars used in circuit racing. Group 5 cars had never been permitted in the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers.
The number of cars required for homologation—200—was just 4% of the other groups' requirements and half of what was previously accepted in Group 4. As homologation periods could be extended by producing only 10% of the initial requirement each subsequent year (20 in Group B's case compared to 500 for A and N), the group made motorsport more accessible for car manufacturers before taking the group's technicalities and performance into account. 'Evolutions' could be included within the original homologation without needing to produce a new initial run, allowing manufacturers to tweak various aspects of their competing car within the requirement to produce only 20 'evolved' cars. Together, these homologation rules resulted in Group B 'homologation specials'—extremely rare cars that were only produced to satisfy the homologation quota rather than for sales, if they continued to exist beyond presentation to FIA officials in the first place.
Group B could be used to homologate production sports cars which were ineligible for Group N or A due to not having four seats or not being produced in large enough numbers (such as the Ferrari 308 or the Porsche 911). Furthermore, the low production requirement encouraged manufacturers to use competition-oriented space frames instead of the unibodies typically used in most series-production road cars.