Rally Cars

AutotopiaLA is back with what is, arguably, the most outrageous build on the channel – a 1977 Ford F-100 Pre-Runner. What makes this truck special is not only the fact that it survived a roll-over accident, but also that it is a V-8-powered, street-legal trophy truck that loves to hang in the air.

The first James Bond movie - Dr. No - was released on 5th October 1962, so 2022 marks the 60th anniversary of the James Bond film franchise. During these 60 years, the Land Rover models were used a lot in all the James Bond movies, so, unsurprisingly, Land Rover will mark the event with a special edition Defender.

It will be a rally-prepared Defender 90 that will compete in the North Wales leg of the 2022 Bowler Defender Challenge. The car will be driven by Mark Higgins - a three-time British Rally Champion and Bond stunt driver in movies like Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, and No Time to Die.

In order to prepare for an all-electric era, the 2022 World Rally Championship (WRC) will introduce a new set of technical regulations known as the "Rally1." For the first time in the WRC history, the Rally1 cars will use a hybrid drivetrain and they will have to travel in electric-only mode on specific road sections.

Hyundai is the first one to announce its Rally1 contender with a few weeks before the season’s start later this month. The car - the i20 N Rally1 - is based on the road-going version i20 N, but it has been developed from the ground up to accommodate the new hybrid setup.

Toyota wouldn’t be the first brand you think of when talking about exciting cars. However, the Japanese brand has been on something of a roll in recent times and the GR Yaris is one of the best examples. Chris Harris has driven and raced more than a few cars, so he is quite qualified to talk about it while finding out its limits. As you might guess, some epic driving is in store, and here’s what Harris makes of Toyota’s rally-bred hot hatch.

Valkyrie Racing’s 1956 Porsche 356A will travel 356 miles to Antarctica, in December 2021 as part of the "Project 356 World Rally" expedition and its humanitarian purpose is to end child trafficking.

Lancia has released a series of films, celebrating the brand’s 115-year-old history. In the third and final episode of the documentary series, dubbed "Elegance on the move”, the brand’s CEO, Luca Napolitano talks about two incredibly important chapters in Lancia’s glorious history, Rally Racing and Art.

Ken Block recently made the transition, from Ford to Audi. His relationship with the German premium brand took him to Audi Tradition, in Ingolstadt, Germany. The facility, which comprises of some unassuming, at first glance, buildings, houses the most legendary cars from Audi’s rich motorsport history. The cool part is that all of them get driven every now and then and Ken Block had a go in the rarest and ultimate Audi rally car – the Sport Quattro RS 002.

Land Rover Defender is one of the toughest SUVs that money can buy you. The automaker reminded people of the same when it decided to send a fleet of Defenders to the Alps as support vehicles for the Red Bulls X-Alps adventure race. The Defender will be used to ferry people and supplies around, and will also act as recovery vehicles for the athletes.

BRX is a new name for Dakar Rally fans but they’re not letting that get in the way. Bahrain Raid Xtreme on its full name, the race team will take part in Dakar 2021 with a Prodrive-designed off-roader and a star-filled driver lineup to match its ambitions.

Petrolhead or no petrolhead, you simply can’t say no to a video of a 1979 Porsche 911 Carrera RS ripping through a picturesque rally stage that runs through a lot of farmland and forest areas in Germany. And you might be surprised, but the lightweight sports car can hold its own in front of more modern, turbocharged AWD cars.

You gotta love it when manufacturers bring race-proven performance to the street. Back in the ‘80s, that’s exactly what Renault did with the R5 Turbo2, a boxy giant-slayer that looks the part of a sideways dirt-slinger all the way down to the hugely flared rear fenders.

This thing is just dripping with old-school-cool, which means it fits right in at Jay Leno’s Garage. Originally, the mighty mite used to be (as Jay puts it) “just a front-wheel drive, front-engined, econobox.” Now, however, it’s so much more. For starters, the engine is in now behind the seats, and now features a turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder producing just under 200 horsepower, all of which flows through a five-speed manual transmission. The suspension was also completely reworked, and of course, don’t forget that glorious new body work. The product of racing homologation, just 200 were produced with the same aluminum roof as the example seen here.

This thing is a straight-up rally superstar for the road. Check it out in length in this 27-minute, 44-second video, which includes a look at all the technical details, and a stint on the streets of Southern California.

Pretty much every rally highlight video in existence includes some hero pinning it over a crest, engine bouncing off the rev limiter, all four wheels spinning through the atmosphere. It doesn’t get much more dramatic than jumping a car, but as Team O’Neil explains in this 6-minute video, there’s a bit more to it than planting your foot and death-gripping the steering wheel.

Last week, I was in Savannah, Georgia, driving the new 2020 Toyota Corolla Sedan and while I was there, Toyota had a surprise waiting for me - a ride along with Ryan Tuerck in the 1,000-horsepower Papadakis Racing Toyota Corolla Hatchback drift machine! It was an incredible experience, and it served as a stark reminder of just how amazing drifting really is.

Updated 03/19/2019: When this article was originally written, the author assumed Ryan Tuerck would drive the featured Corolla race car in the 2019 Formula Drift season. This is incorrect. Papadakis Racing built the featured Corolla race car for Toyota for demonstration purposes, and Ryan Tuerck is not a regular driver for the Papadakis Racing team. The author apologizes for the error.

With Peugeot exiting stage left, it seemed like Mini and Toyota would battle it out for the victory in the 2019 Dakar Rally and, indeed, it was Toyota man, Nasser Al-Attiyah, who delivered the goods, winning in a commanding fashion as his nearest rivals faltered.

The 2019 Dakar Rally, which keeps being a mislabeled event as it’s been taking place in South America for a decade already, proved grueling although the competitors never went further than Peru. It was the first time since the inaugural edition that the Dakar didn’t travel across more than one country, but that didn’t mean it lacked in either excitement or drama.

Subaru is one of the most revered names in rallying history and, along with archrival Mitsubishi, has been absent from top-level WRC competition for a decade. Now, however, Japanese sources point to a possible resurgence of the Subaru WRC program.

Subaru built its reputation in rallying over a relatively short period of time. the Subaru World Rally Team was formed in 1989 and was active for less than two decades from that point on. But, in those two decades, Subaru put forth some of the most amazing machines ever seen on the WRC scene and promoted some of the sport’s most beloved drivers with names like Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Petter Solberg immediately springing to mind.

Sadly, Subaru isn’t part of the WRC anymore, although a no-limit rally car based on the Impreza has been seen competing to this day, however, it’s mainly racing in Asia and the Rally U.S.A. series, not in Europe. This is all about to change if rumors regarding a return of the Subaru World Rally Team in 2020 turn out to be legitimate.

Travis Pastrana didn’t mince his words describing the NRX track, calling it a “hell track for cars.” Pastrana knows a thing or two about hell track for racers. He’s competed — and won — in supercross, motocross, freestyle motocross, and rally racing. But even with his accomplishments, Pastrana still paid reverence to the track that will be used in the Nitro World Games by taking us on a flying lap around the circuit.

02018 Peugeot 30080
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Motorsports are fun. This country has lots of options to choose from, including the straight-line acceleration fest that is drag racing, technical handling tests in autocross, and high-speed apex hunting in road racing. Rally racing is another option, but finding the right level of cost and accessibility can be hard for anyone without sponsorship money from a major energy drink company. Luckily, there’s rallycross, where wheel-to-wheel thrills meet dirt and counter steer, all for a relatively affordable cost. Drive recently gave it a shot in its latest episode of “My Life As A Rallyist,” and long story short, things get a little… blind.

There are a few things I really like about this video. First, it’s about rallying, the most incredible sport ever conceived by man. Secondly, it features an old school Impreza wagon tearing it up in the dirty stuff, complete with snowboard buckles to hold the front bumper in place. Finally, it shines a light on the incredible grassroots awesomeness of rallycross, which, in my opinion, deserves a whole lot more interest amongst enthusiasts vying for an adrenaline rush.

As you probably expect, most of the cars featured in the video are Subarus, but there are some interesting standouts, such as a beat-up looking Ford Ranger, and a very quick crosskart. The protagonist lines up against similar non-turbo Subies, and quickly finds himself in a battle towards the front. Unfortunately, a splash of mud makes it impossible for the driver to spot where’s he going. And that’s where things get really interesting.

Clocking in at seven-and-a-half minutes, this video is definitely worth a watch for anyone interested in testing their skills on the muddy battlefields of rallycross.

You gotta love racing. In the push for ultimate glory and a top-of-the-podium finish, automakers will do just about anything. Produce a sports car with the aesthetic of a shoebox? Sure! Completely ignore comfort in favor of a few extra tenths? No problem! Make a product that’s wildly overpriced and completely impractical in just about every conceivable way? Hell, Ferrari’s been doing it for decades.

However, with the unique pressures of each racing series comes a unique breed of cars. Drag racing makes muscle cars, while circuit racing makes mid-engine exotics.

This list gravitates towards the dirty stuff, where names like Tommi Makinen, Colin McRae, Walter Rohrl, and Sebastien Loeb are uttered in hushed reverence. This is the land of mud-flinging power slides and sky-scraping crests. This is TopSpeed’s Top 5 Rally-Bred Street Machines.

Continue reading to learn more about TopSpeed’s Top 5 Rally-Bred Street Machines.

The 10,000-mile, 37-day Peking-to-Paris rally is without question one of the toughest races in all of motor sports. That has held true since the first race happened in 1907 and continues to be the case in its sixth iteration that’s scheduled to start on June 12, 2016. Needless to say, not everyone has the nerve to participate in the race. But there are those like Chris Bury who are embracing the ridiculous challenge of the rally race. But not only is he participating, this dude is racing with a 1973 Datsun 240Z. Of course, the car has been heavily tuned to withstand the rigors of the P2P rally race.

Bury and his father spent the last year restoring and modifying the 240Z to full rally specification and as The Smoking Tire’s Matt Farah finds out, it really has everything you need to conquer the 10,000 mile race. It’s got a full rally suspension, skid plates, off-road tires, a 26-gallon fuel cell, a period-correct limited-slip differential, and a bored out 2.7-liter straight six engine that not only produces 195 horsepower and 189 pound-feet of torque, but is also running on low compression to ensure that it doesn’t get stymied by bad fuel during the race. Seems like a smart idea if Bury doesn’t want to get stuck in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

According to Farah, the 240Z is currently in transit to China, but before it got shipped off, he got to spend some time behind the wheel of the rally racer with Bury riding shotgun. The whole episode is an interesting one because of what Bury plans to accomplish when the Peking-to-Paris rally race starts in June. It’s hard to imagine finding anyone who would willingly participate and even rebuild a stock 240Z specifically for the occasion.

All the best, Chris Bury. Here’s to hoping you get to see the checkered flag at the Place Vendome on July 17.

Introduced for the 2013 racing season as Volkswagen’s first

spec factory car since the 1990 Golf Rally G60, the Polo R WRC went on to dominate the sport by winning three back-to-back World Rally Championships through 2015. Having dominated each and every season since it returned to WRC, Volkswagen is gunning for more success starting 2017 with a new

based racer.

Under development since summer 2015, when the FIA released the new regulations for the World Rally Car class, the 2017 Polo R WRC is previewed as a significant improvement over its predecessor. Just like any evolution out there, the new

spec compact is set to be lighter, more powerful and more aerodynamic. In other words, Ford and Hyundai have plenty of things to worry about for 2017 if they don’t shape up over the next 12 months.

Details about the next-gen Polo R WRC are still very limited, and the actual car was only shown as a rendering, but Volkswagen provided just enough information for us to have a closer look at Wolfsburg’s upcoming rally weapon. An unveiling is planned toward the end of 2016 with the official debut to take place at the Rally Monte Carlo in January 2017. Stay tuned for updates!

Continue reading to learn more about the 2017 Volkswagen Polo R WRC.