The full and rarely told story of Toyota's recent and highly-successful World Rally Championship campaign, undertaken by its motorsport subsidiary, Gazoo Racing.
Beginning with a history of Toyota's early days in the rallying arena, the book then covers each and every WRC entry made by Gazoo, detailing technical changes and profiling the drivers that brought the team victory along the way.
With a Foreword from Akio Toyoda, founder of the Gazoo Team and Chairman of Toyota, and featuring full rally reports from each season between 2017 and the end of 2024, plus a stunning selection of photographs sourced from the factory, all the action and excitement of the WRC is perfectly captured.
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GAZOO!
The full story of Toyota's recent and highly-successful World Rally Championship campaign, undertaken by its motorsport subsidiary, Gazoo Racing. Using stunning photography sourced from the factory, the book covers every WRC entry made by Gazoo, and looks back at Toyota's early days in the sport. Foreword by Akio Toyoda.
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Chapter 3
The Group B Monsters
The FIA’s latest homologation regulations had been hammered out with manufacturers over the autumn of 1980, and came into effect for the start of the 1982 season. Things would never be the same again, with the Group B era providing a level of speed and spectacle that just had to be seen to be believed …
The arrival of the Group N, A and B categories would tighten up homologation rules, with Group N and A for showroom touring cars (with a minimum of 5000 units a year), and Group B for special Grand Touring models, built in more limited quantities (200 produced within in a year), with an ‘Evolution’ provision for 20 specials based on these – these were the monsters alluded to. Engine capacity breaks continued, with allowances for NA units against those with forced induction helping to level the playing field. For now, cars homologated in Groups 1 to 4 were still able to compete alongside the new groups, although G1 was automatically classed as Group N or A (A being international level rallies), while G2, G3 and G4 machines went into the Group B box.
1982
The first rally of the year for TTE was the Port Wine Rally, with Björn Waldegård and Per Eklund campaigning second generation Celica coupés. Waldegård was fast, but forced to drop out with differential trouble. Eklund was second in the end, though, finishing close behind winning Audi of Michèle Mouton.
The third generation (RA63) Celica coupé made its WRC debut in New Zealand, midway through the season. Powered by a two-litre 16v four pumping out 240bhp, scoring a remarkable one-two finish in the hands of Waldegård and Eklund. It was TTE’s first WRC victory – the first of many as it happens.
Next up was the Ivory Coast event, with Ove Andersson unable to resist entering a third car for himself. He dropped out quickly (as did Samir Assef in a locally-registered RA45 model), but the other TTE men were second and third, in touch with Walter Röhrl’s Opel up front and comfortably ahead of the works Renault in fourth. Sadly, the second African round of the year only counted towards the driver standings.
This was to be a short, bridging season for the TTE outfit, ending with a seventh and ninth for the Toyota GB-entered Group 4 Celicas in the RAC Rally. A more powerful Group B car loosely based on the turbocharged Celica 1800GT-T mode was already waiting in the wings, though, enabling Toyota to build on its reputation as a force to be reckoned with in the rallying arena.
1982 WRC season standings
1st Audi 116 points
2nd Opel 104 points
3rd Nissan 57 points
5th Toyota 41 points
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781787119307
Publisert
2025-02-27
Utgiver
Vendor
Veloce
Vekt
1098 gr
Høyde
260 mm
Bredde
215 mm
Dybde
23 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet