Group A was undoubtedly a highpoint for tin-top motorsport, with both stage and circuit playing host to some great homologation specials. Group B obviously garnered all the attention, but it was the Group A production cars which people could actually afford - a factor which helped cement the classification's legend.
Many of those cars - the likes of the BMW M3, Ford Sierra RS500, Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 and R32 GT-R - have been repeatedly eulogised over the past 30 years, and will be familiar to PHers. So we're going to give the unsung touring car heroes some love instead, and draw attention to those models that were winning before cars were specifically designed with Group A success in mind. Some were good, some were great, some were... not so, but we're a sucker for touring cars, and their motorsport-mandated production equivalents. So without further ado...
6. Opel Omega Evo 500
Arguably one of the most interesting homologation specials there was, only ranked at the bottom of this list due to a conspicuous lack of success. The Evo 500 was Opel's attempt, along with Irmscher, to build a DTM challenger to rival the M3, 190E and Audi V8. Given how much the other three are discussed and the Opel isn't, you can probably guess how its racing career went...
Nevertheless, the effort that went into making an Evo qualifies the Omega. Reciprocating masses were reduced in the straight-six - which produced another 26hp over a GSI3000 - in an attempt to benefit the race car, an electrically adjustable spoiler was fitted, the suspension and brakes completely overhauled. It must have looked so inconsequential to those people asked for tens of thousands of Marks more than a GSI, but the commitment to the cause was still admirable.
Perhaps it was also naïve, in hindsight, given the talent lined up in opposition. Whatever the case, it's another intriguing homologation story to add to the pile; and while the racers didn't achieve much success on track, they make for great hillclimb cars...
5. Volvo 240 Turbo
Nearly a decade before the 850 estate stunned the BTCC audiences, Volvo was racing with a car equally unsuitable. Or so it seemed.
The 240 Turbo won the European Touring Car Championship and the German Touring Car Championship in 1985, the bluff Swedish charger beating off a wealth of competition thanks to a Ruedi Eggenberger-tuned engine. Eggenberger then went off to fettle Sierras, having proven his worth with the 240.
The incongruous nature of the Volvo gets it into the top five - especially with genuine success recorded - but also because of its bizarre history. It seems that nobody ever actually bought a Volvo 240 Turbo in the later, winning homologation spec. Story goes that the relevant authorities only saw 23 assembled cars at inspection time; Volvo said the other 477 had already gone to the US, but they were in fact stripped of the equipment and sold as regular 240 Turbos. Nobody could find any for sale, until Volvo pointed to a few in - you guessed it - Sweden, and a proposed ban for the car was lifted. So we have success, speed and scandal, all in one innocuous Volvo - an easy fifth place.
4. Nissan Skyline R31 GTS-R
Seeing one of these Skylines in a Reebok or Calsonic livery looks odd, like a Dad borrowing his kid's clothes to head to the pub. But there was a successful Group A Skyline before the R32; albeit not an entirely dominant, era-defining one...
The R31 was ultimately a pretty dowdy Nissan coupe of the 1980s, but the GTS-R was a fitting finale. Again exploiting the Evolution rules where just 500 cars had to be built (as opposed to the standard Group A 2,500), the GTS-R featured a chunkier turbo and intercooler on the RB20DET straight-six turbo - and you thought that legend began with the RB26...
With more than 200hp in road trim and 430hp+ as a racer, the R31 GTS-R won the Japanese Touring Car Championship in 1989, as well as the Sandown 500 in Australia. The following year the R32 was ushered in, and we all know what happened then, but the GTS-R went out with a bang: Jim Richards used the R31 for six of the eight races in Australian touring cars that year before the R32's introduction, where he took two wins and two more podiums ahead of the RS500 gaggle, setting him up to take the title in the new car. The R32 Skyline is rightly a legend, but the R31 deserves recognition as well.
3. Rover SD1 Vitesse
Another one for the 'how on earth did they get that racing' category, it's sometimes hard to believe the SD1 was winning championships at the same time as E30 BMW M3. (In fact, the M3's first DTM title came in 1987; guess the victor in 1986...)
But win the SD1 did, and win quite a bit. The big Rover won six races in that 1985 European Touring Car Championship that the Volvo claimed, took Group A victory at Bathurst and an RAC Tourist Trophy triumph as well as the DTM trophy. Tom Walkinshaw's involvement will only have helped the SD1's allure.
Perhaps the reason it ranks so highly here is that the SD1 was, and remains, an absolute to joy to watch race. Low, loud, fast and so sideways, the Rover is a touring car to make you smile. That it was actually successful seems almost a fortunate by-product.
2. BMW 635 CSI
The Group A BMW that isn't an M3 had to feature on this list. Firstly, the E24 6 Series made for perhaps one of the best-looking touring cars ever made; secondly, using that magnificent M30 straight-six made it one of the best sounding as well.
There's even a good story to the 6 Series as a Group A car; with Jaguar having homologated the V12 XJS during 1982 for the ETCC, BMW needed something more competitive for 1983 than the E12 528i it had won with that year. With the 6 Series road car from '82 being based on the E28 5 Series, BMW and Schnitzer got to work making a new racer, and to reassert the 6 Series at the top having been triumphant in 1981.
It worked, the 635CSI winning the 1983 ETCC, the 1984 DTM, then the 1985 JTCC and the ATCC in the same year. Europe, Japan, Australia - the E24 won (and looked great) wherever it went. Were it not for the fact that the M3 went on to be even more successful (and look just as good), the 6 Series might be remembered even more fondly.
1. Audi V8
An Audi, at the top of the Group A list? Some mistake, surely? Well, no, it isn't. We have it here simply because it won against the odds. By the time of the V8's championship wins - back to back DTM titles in 1990 and 1991 - both the M3 and 190E were well established racers. Much lighter racers, too, it should be noted, and yet the Audi beat them. With a honking great V8, four-wheel drive and some gorgeous gold wheels. Always helps to look good.
As well as being the first car to win back-to-back DTM titles, there was even some controversy to help the V8 mystique. For '92, Audi switched to a flat-plane crank for the race car, which it said - get this - was forged and bent from the cross-plane crank used in the road car. Good one. Unsurprisingly the FIA deemed that baloney, and Audi quit the championship in a strop. The DTM legends would go on to be the 190 Evos, M3s and Alfa 155s of this world, and it wobe more than a decade before another Audi DTM success, but the V8's formidable campaign wouldn't be forgotten.
1 / 18
