Cars
The production-based cars with 1.6 L direct injection turbo engine and four-wheel drive are built to World Rally Car regulations for racing across tarmac, gravel and snow. The power output has been limited to around 300 bhp (225 kW). Current cars in the championship include the Citroën DS3 WRC, Ford Fiesta RS WRC and Mini WRC.
The WRC was formerly held for Group A and Group B rallycars. However, due to the increasing power, lack of reliability and the fatal accidents on the 1986 season, Group B was permanently banned. Later, in 1997, the Group A cars evolved into the WRC car spec, to ease the development of new cars and bring new makes to the competition. For 2011 season new rules are introduced to encourage more manufacturers (and privateers) to take part because of the economic downturn many manufacturers left championship.
Cars in the Production car World Rally Championship are limited to production-based cars homologated under Group N rules. Cars in the Super 2000 World Rally Championship are homologated under Super 2000 rules. Most cars in the Junior World Rally Championship are homologated under Super 1600 rules, but Group N and selected Group A cars can also contest the series.
For 2013, there is a new category of rally cars known as Group R as a replacement to the GpA and GpN rally categories. These categories are targeted towards the privateers whilst keeping the current World Rally Cars for the manufacturers.
Read more about this topic: World Rally Championship
Famous quotes containing the word cars:
“Cuchulain stirred,
Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard
The cars of battle and his own name cried;
And fought with the invulnerable tide.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“I looked, there was nothing to see but more long streets and thousands of cars going along them, and dried-up country on each side of the streets. It was like the Sahara, only dirty.”
—Mohammed Mrabet (b. 1940)