'80s MOTORSPORT

If road cars were great in the '80s, the motorsport was simply spectacular, from Group B rally monsters via Group C endurance legends to turbocharged F1 cars. But there was tragedy, too

- RICHARD MEADEN

GROUP A. GROUP B. GROUP C... WAS A DECADE ever blessed with a more evocative regulatory roll-call? Whether you fell in love with showroom-based homologation heroes, fire-spitting all-wheel-drive monsters or high-downforce prototypes, the '80s were a riot of spectacular cars and vibrant racing.

Colourful liveries – often advertising tobacco or alcohol products – made the grids even more spectacular, as did the generous marketing budgets that paid for them. Such was the impact of those sponsors that many fans fortunate enough to enjoy watching them in period still refer to the Rothmans Porsches and Silk Cut Jags at Le Mans, or the Marlboro McLarens and Gitanes Ligiers in F1. Likewise, the Martini-liveried Lancia 037s and S4s that ruled Group B, immediately followed by the Delta Integrales that came to dominate Group A once the so-called 'Killer Bs' were banned.

Group A tends to get overshadowed, but it gave us a fabulous array of touring cars, with Ford's wild RS500 Cosworth and BMW's exquisite E30 M3 epitomising the days when the quest to create competitive racing cars spawned great road cars.

Of course, it's a sad reality of '80s motorsport that kaleidoscopic racing liveries went hand-in-hand with some decidedly dark days. Those beautiful Martini-striped Lancias were involved in two fatal crashes on consecutive Tour de Corse WRC rallies, Attilio Bettega losing his life after losing control of his 037 and hitting a tree in the 1985 event, with Henri Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresto killed in a fiery crash in their Delta S4 the following year.