Tag: Apex Video

Think of the Citröen Dyane as an upgraded version of the 2CV: in top-performance Dyane 6 form, there’s a 602cc flat-two engine driving the front wheels, a very light body structure, and after watching them go all-out at a rally, suspension travel that requires Dramamine to tolerate. We love an inappropriate car doing what it shouldn’t do, and with bicycle-wide tires and 32 horsepower on tap, rally racing is the last possible thing we would do with one. Alberto Miera, on the other hand, has absolutely no issue whatsoever wringing out his Dyane 6 on rally courses. The YouTube video description refers to Miera as the “brave pilot”, and watching the Dyane move around reinforces that statement. It might not be powerful, but anything past cruising speed brings out the suspension travel, and Miera isn’t afraid of the car at all, going so far as to induce oversteer. Watching the front wheels lay over in the corners makes us wonder just how many tie rod ends he goes through per race!

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(Courtesy: Jalopnik)

Group B Rally racing conjures up images of Lancias battling Audis, Ford RS200s flying through narrow streets, airborne Opel Mantas and all sorts of crazy, borderline unhinged designs. It was pretty much anything goes, and manufacturers did just about everything possible to gain the upper hand. Lightweight bodies that were barely production? Turbochargers and superchargers, sometimes on the same engine? All-wheel-drive? Check, check, and check. Even to this day Group B is considered one of the most exciting times in any motorsports genre ever, and in it’s heyday it was more popular worldwide than Formula One. It was big enough that Ferrari was going to join the ranks…if that doesn’t speak volumes, nothing does.

Mazda even played along too, with their RX-7, and while it was already at a disadvantage against the four-wheel-drive crowd, it did have one neat feature that the audience was sure to love: a tachometer that swung around to 12,000 RPM and an engine fully capable of hitting that number. The worked-over 13B rotary was good for 300 horsepower at 8500 RPM, and when thrown into a race car that weighed around 2100 pounds, fun was had. Unlike other manufacturers, Mazda didn’t have to produce homologation models; instead, they were sort of grandfathered in since the RX-7 had been homologated for Group 1, Group 2 and Group 4 already. They were the underdog on the stages, but you could hear that rotary bark for miles!

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