Rallycross era of Group B Supercars

[HRHGTACUSTOMS]

Hey

I have played car games through all of my life. Bought the game in January and interestingly I have been emotionally attached ever since. I recently showed support and bought the ultimate add-ons bundle as well, but there is no way to complete the star card without the art house sorcery. As I did Virtual Tuning when I was much younger, I thought, why not resurrect good memories and try to create something, from which the community would hopefully gain. I chose the wonderful rallycross era of Group B supercars. When Group B rally cars were banned from international rallying by the end of season 1986, cars homologations were still active until the end of 1992. Many of the cars found new life in European Rallycross Championship, as well as in more prominent national rallycross championships (British, Finnish, French & etc.) Cool fact is that, if Group B rally regulations were, ‘loose’, to attract more manufacturers, then rallycross rules offered even more flexibility due to the nature of many of them being built single-handedly in private garages at time. When Group B cars finally arrived into spotlight in 1987, people turned their boost even more higher and this resulted in ex. works rally cars driven absolute flat out at 650-800bhp+ This was simply amazing stuff!

I decided to gain my painter rank through these liveries, post some pictures and comment a few words for the sake of such a great era being never forgotten!

I am still a beginner in making liveries completely from scratch, but I try to compensate it with passion! Keep in mind, that almost every rallycross car looked more or less different at every event they entered as it was common at the time to have event-specific sponsor logos…

Feel free to download, use and like my designs! You can also follow Me, to stay in touch more easily!

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I start with Matti Alamäki and his Lancia Delta S4. This car drove mainly in the 1987 European Rallycross Championship, which was the boom season for the ex. Group B cars. Although, Matti wasn´t comfortable with the car straight from the beginning, he still managed to win some championship rounds and finish in overall second place. The car itself was a true works chassis #226, which entered the San Remo and Lombard RAC rallies in 1986, won 16 special stages and finished on the podium on both occasions. After Matti drove it for a year in his distinctive “North State/North Racing” livery depending on tobacco ban, car was allegedly badly crashed somewhere in 89/90 and fellow finn mr. Kankkunen bought it, repainted back to its factory rally livery and keeps it for his private collection. Who does not know, Juha has arguably the most authentic group B cars collection of all…

Fun Fact: Matti´s livery is also replicated on the RX Delta S4 in DR2, as betrays the ‘A-VAKUUTUS’ logo on the front bumper…

[Incog_Bus]

Nice work on the livery! I will be downloading a little later when I’m on.

Keep up the great work!

Cheers

[Rockspeny]

Great work! That is very accurate and you thinking on the same lines as me. I have created base liveries, without logos, for Alamaki’s 205T2 Evo, John Welch’s Escort, Arild Martinsen’s Talbot Sunbeam, Roger Newboulds’ Renault Turbo2, Dimi Mavroupolis’ Audi Sport Quattro for example. What I really need to finish these off is the logos, like “STP”, “Viking Dekk”, “Shell oils”, Sachs", “North State”, “Gloma Papp” etc. It is possible to share logos others have created or do I need to learn to make my own? I’ll be downloading your Delta livery when I’m on again tomorrow. Thanks for sharing the post!

[Mr_Fade]

Very nice , looking forward to seeing more .
Very enjoyable read as well! Thank you !

Will pick this one up when I’m on next .

Cheers!

[Rockspeny]

Just downloaded and following you now. I like the Paul Chateaux livery too, I remember that one from the ERC rounds in France, thanks.
“edit” Amazing, been through your shared designs now, you have Rennison, Welch, Arneson, Niitymakki, Schie. Guy Frequelin, beautiful! You have done work I was planning to, I will do others. Thanks for the vinyl group shares too, make my job way easier! Thanks for all your hard work! I look forward to seeing your future ones. I am doing Martinsen’s Talbot and Nordson and Nilsson RS200’s.

[HRHGTACUSTOMS]

Thank You Everyone for such positive words!

Audi may be the most famous group B car and it really was the most powerful, but was massively compromised with a front-heavy steering (they did not want to build mid-engine car, because they held on to their principles as rallying being for modified, but still standard production cars. Many manufacturers had their mid-engined weapons, but as suspected by the domination in rallying, Peugeot 205 T16 was the top performer in rallycross, too.

This is Seppo Niittymäki´s livery from his winning season in 1987 European Rallycross Championship. This was the boom championship for the group B supercars and this actually meant, that 205T16 suited better for rallycross, than Delta S4. As I earlier wrote, Matti struggled with his Delta right away, although being one of the naturally talented top rallycross driver. I have read, that Henri Toivonen was the only person, who could actually tame the Delta S4 properly at all. This was a true Peugeot Talbot Sport works car and if I remember correctly, champion Timo Salonen drove few events in it… Seppo was lazy with the livery, as most of the original PTS livery is still there. At the end of season 1987, Seppo retired in a fashion and sold the car along to Terje Schie for a sum reported around 200 000£

And from here, Matti Alamäki took it over again. As stories go, he asked a favour from his friend Juha Kankkunen and acquired himself Peugeot 205 T16 also. This car was no joke by any means, as it was a even higher Pikes Peak-spec officially used as a reserve car at the event. Matti was invulnerable and won three straight European Rallycross Championships (1988-1990) in a row. Although, car remained red and primarily sponsored by North State/North Racing, he really did not do a favour in recreating his liveries. There are countless slightly different editions of his cars through the championship years, that this is only a version I made by my liking. I will update it, as I found too many things already, which to fix.

@ Rockspeny, good luck on Rolf Nilsson´s RS200 livery, but I suggest creating Your own livery groups. This way, We can download Your design as well!

And when You talk about Martinsen, I have always thought about recreating Arild´s M3 E30 as that was a crazy build at the time - 700+hp 4x4 beemer

THE MOST INSANE E30 BMW M3 EVER BUILT- STAV-FACT*

[Rockspeny]

Hi HRHGTACUSTOMS, I did Nordstrom’s RS200, you can search it as “Nordstrom ERX 87”. It is a slight mass-up of his 87 and 88 liveries but I am happy with it. I have a problem with the red on the roof air inlets, as Forza won’t colours the roof and doesn’t differentiate the inlets as a sepaate unit so there is bleed onto the roof I just had to put up with. I also had a go at his '85 Beetle, but it was really hard work as Forza struggles with the curvy bodywork. You’ll see that one once you have my profile. I am on to Martinsen’s M3 next, feel free to use the logos I have started creating now I’ve seen how it’s done.

[Guest]

Super work OP keep it up and I look forward to more.