The World Rally Championship is in a strange place at the moment. The cars are arguably the most spectacular they’ve ever been, with Rally1 monsters packing 500hp+ of hybrid punch and towering wings that wouldn’t look out of place on the start line at Pikes Peak. They’re the closest thing we have to modern-day Group B cars, but given most of the coverage is locked behind a paywall it’s tricky to stay on top of the action.
From next year, Rally1 machines will ditch the pricey hybrid systems and have their wings clipped to prevent costs from spiralling even higher and peg back the insane speeds the current cars are capable of. Sadly, that means you’ve only got half a season’s worth of Group B-style action to go, but on the plus side, the changes could usher in another golden era akin to the WR ruleset from the '00s. Though the cars weren’t as radical as they are today, the regulations produced some stellar seasons and several WRC icons, including this Marlboro-liveried Peugeot 206.
What made this generation of WRC car particularly special is that they closely resembled the cars you could actually buy, even if they shared little in common with them. Peugeot never would make a four-wheel-drive 206 with over 300hp (imagine how cool a T16 version would be have been?), though it did release a special GT version with elongated bumpers to squeeze the humble hatch through the ruleset’s minimum length requirement. But that’s beside the point. Even with blistered arches, giant roof scoop and lofty rear wing, the WRC car didn’t look far off the 206 GTIs on your local Peugeot dealer’s forecourt.
Peel back the 206 shell, however, and you’ll find a rally-prepared turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine with tricks like anti-lag and launch control for maximum exhaust crackles. In period, that would have been paired with a sequential gearbox and a circular paddle shifter behind the steering wheel, but this one looks to have been converted to a central-mounted lever. It was properly quick, too, especially in the hands of Marcus Grönholm who bagged two drivers’ championships (2000 and 2002) in the 206, as well as 15 rally victories - one of which came in this very example.
Like many racing cars, WRC machines are passed around different teams and drivers over multiple seasons. Chassis C35 here has spent most of its life as a Peugeot Sport works car, with Grönholm taking the car to three stage wins on its debut at the 2001 Cyprus Rally. It was then used by 1994 champ Didier Auriol at that year’s Rally Finland, before claiming its first rally win with Peugeot legend Gilles Panizzi at the 2002 Tour de Corse. Its second rally win would come near the end of the season with Grönholm at Rally Australia, with its third and final victory coming at Rally New Zealand in 2003 with the reigning champion at the wheel once again. Richard Burns even had a spell in the car, too. Talk about a star lineup.
Once Peugeot introduced the 307 CC rally car in 2004, the car was sold on to privateers, then collectors and finally to seller Girardo and Co in 2021, where it was returned to its 2003 Rally New Zealand livery (which is one of the best of the era). You’ll need to get in touch to find out how much it’s going for, but one of the benefits of these rally cars is that they’re relatively straightforward to run (which you probably can’t say about the current hybrid Rally1 cars), making it a great fit for historic rallies. Just don’t leave it locked in a garage, please: WRC cars can handle a fair bit of abuse, so the occasional tear around your (likely massive) country home grounds won’t do it any harm. Can’t say the same about the flowerbeds, mind.
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