The fourth most successful WRC manufacturer: Peugeot

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Peugeot?s time in the World Rally Championship can sensibly be divided into two eras: the Peugeot 205 T16 period and the epoch of the 206 WRC. The French firm?s roots in world rallying can, of course, be traced back much further than Group B, with the 404 winning Safari Rallies as early as the mid-1960s.

The 504 continued that tradition for success on marathon events, but it was the 205 T16 which really hit the mark.

The first prototype of the 205 emerged from the Velizy factory in 1982, but it would take 18 months of solid development and testing before the car was shorn of the hideous turbo lag and handling issues which beset its early days, and it was ready for the WRC stage. But when it was ready, it was ready to win.

The car made a nationalistic debut on the 1984 Tour de Corse and, with Finland?s Ari Vatanen at the wheel, it led the event. He did the same later in the year on the Acropolis Rally and then won the 1,000 Lakes Rally in 1984. Once Vatanen had started winning with the T16, he simply didn?t stop. The only person who could stop him was Timo Salonen on the following year?s Rally of Portugal - and by then Salonen was also driving a 205 T16.

If Audi had masterminded rallying?s four-wheel-drive revolution, Peugeot refined it (and Lancia would subsequently make it an art form...). The mid-engined 205 was everything Audi?s Quattro wasn?t. It was short, sharp, balanced and beautiful.

Vatanen?s hopes of repeating his 1981 drivers? title vanished with his horrific Rally Argentina accident in 1985. But Salonen had already been building momentum of his own - and he would go on to lift the drivers? title, while Peugeot celebrated its maiden manufacturers? crown.

Work on the 205 T16 E2 was well underway even before Vatanen had sprayed the bonnet of the T16 in Finland, 1984. So it came as little surprise that the E2 just kept up that winning momentum. The new car featured improved cooling for the brakes and improved aero - courtesy of the enormous rear wing. The 1775cc motor got the odd tweak and a switch of turbo supplier to improve power output to close to 500bhp. It?s little wonder that Peugeot celebrated a second world title in 1996 and Juha Kankkunen collected his first crown the with E2, the car reckoned to be the most complete Group B machine ever made.

Fifteen years after the 205 T16 exploded onto the scene in Corsica, the 206 WRC did the same job, with Francois Delecour leading the rally briefly in 1999. But, once again, it would be a Finn who would deliver on the French firm?s promise. This time it was Marcus Gronholm.

Gronholm collected the 206?s first win in Sweden, 2000. While the 206 had been purpose built, with scant regard for the road-going model on which it was based, the 206 was subjected to a much stiffer set of regulations. If Peugeot hadn?t built 2,500 206GT road cars - complete with longer bumpers to reach the minimum length - the car would never have taken the stage.

But it did and Gronholm won the world title twice in three years with the car. The 2001 and 2002 evolutions of the 206 WRC came within one event of become Peugeot?s most successful rally car. And those wins didn?t all come from Gronholm. Just as he mastered the machine on gravel, so Gilles Panizzi did so on asphalt, taking seven wins.

Peugeot?s stats:
Wins: 48
Most successful driver: Marcus Gronholm, 18 wins
Most successful car: Peugeot 205 T16

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