The 90’s had now become a decade for rallying as iconic as the 80’s had been. But the main
difference, however, was the now almost complete Japanese takeover that had happened over the last
few years. Despite the best efforts of brands like Lancia, who were once the undeniable number one in
the sport, the Japanese were simply too good at building and racing these modified turbocharged
versions of road going models. This takeover also dramatically lessened the number of manufacturers
competing, simply because most didn’t see any point in trying to win, because there
was no chance that they could. The 1995 World Rally Championship typifies this very well,
as there were only 5 manufacturers competing, three of which were Japanese. Compare this,
say with the 1990 championship from 5 years earlier, and you can really see how many more
there were at that point. THe 1995 season itself was actually shaping up to be an exciting one.
Throughout the season Toyota was building itself a nice lead over its main competitor,
Subaru, and it looked certain that they were going to take the title. And, as you probably guessed,
the 1995 constructor’s title was taken by Toyo- wait, no it wasn’t. You see, a few officials began
to become suspicious of Toyota’s winning streak, perhaps it was a little too good to be true. Cars
were inspected after each rally to make sure there were no cheats, and the Celica had passed each and
every time, but something was still off about the whole thing. Therefore, at Rally Catalunya, the
penultimate rally of the season, it was discovered that actually, Toyota had been using illegal turbo
restrictors to boost their power beyond what was legal. Its quite complicated, but basically,
when the restrictor plate was tightened into place, which in of itself was completely legal,
a mechanism would also tighten allowing a 0.5cm bypass to open up around the plate.
This seems completely insignificant, but actually the trick could’ve given the Celica’s an extra
50hp, which is a sizeable amount. Toyota and all their drivers, who were supposedly unaware of the
cheat, were immediately disqualified, had all their points stripped from them and were given
a one year ban by the FIA. Many have come to call this the greatest and most sophisticated
cheat in motorsporting history, and wouldn’t have been caught if the officials hadn’t been
actively looking for illegal cheats. Therefore, the manufacturers title was handed to Subaru,
who were in second at the time, and the driver’s title, who was originally going to Kankkunen,
was given instead to a lesser known driver from Scotland called Colin Mcrae. Mcrae came from
a family of rally drivers. His father, Jimmy, won the British Rally Championship five times
throughout the 1980s, and his brother, Alister, also had a career in the sport. But Colin was much
more of a wild card. No matter what car he was driving, whether it be his Impreza, the Legacy or
even a Talbot Sunbeam, Mcrae was known for pushing not only his car, but himself and his co drivers
to the limit. Hell, its where the phrase “If in doubt, Flat Out” originates. Because of this,
Colin Mcrae has presented the world with some of the best crashes and rolls to grace the sport of
rallying. The 1995 season,again. typified this, as with Toyota out of the picture, it
was dead set that Subaru, as well as one of their drivers, were taking the title. Originally, it was
planned by the team for another Subie driver, Spanish born Carlos Sainz to take the title,
but Colin wasn’t going to take this sidelining sitting down, and took matters into his own hands.
Despite the team begging Mcrae to slow down to let Sainz claim victory, he pushed ahead and got the
trophy, leaving Sainz in second. This event caused Sainz to leave Subaru for Ford in the 1996 season.
Speaking of, the 1996 season, Subaru’s dominance continued, however with Toyota out for the year,
a record low of just 3 manufacturers took part- Subaru, Ford and Mitsubishi. Subaru stormed into
the lead once again and took the manufacturer’s title, but even with Mcrae onside the couldn’t
keep the driver’s title from Tommi Makinen, driving his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 3. 1997 then
came around, and with it some notable changes to the rules. As you know, the WRC had been operating
under the Group A ruleset for 10 years since 1987 at this point. The FIA decided to introduce a
second rulest called the World Rally Car. World Rally Car was put in place to replace Group A,
however initially the FIA allowed manufacturers to choose what ruleset to abide to. Subaru, Ford
and Toyota all immediately switched to World Rally Car, but Mitsubishi was the only one that chose to
remain under Group A, for now. The main difference was that manufacturers, under World Rally Car,
no longer had to build homologation specials. They could take any of their road going cars,
modify it for rally and didn’t have to worry about selling it to the public. The new rules
also limited power output to somewhere in the range of 320 to 340 break horsepower. This new
ruleset would attract more manufacturers over the coming years, but 1997 was still a three way
battle between Subaru, Mitsubishi and Ford. Toyota also returned mid season at Rally Finland having
dropped their Celica in favour of the Corolla WRC with a turbocharged 2.0L inline 4 making
299 horsepower. Subaru went on to claim their hat trick by taking a third manufacturers title, and
Makinen got his second driver’s title in his Evo 4, just one point ahead of Scotsman Colin Mcrae.
1998 was business as usual. Mitsubishi were finally able to kick Subaru of their podium
with their first ever manufacturer’s title, as well as earning Makinen his third consecutive
driver’s title. This was a bit of a fluke however- Carlos Sainz had been leading the pack and was
dead set to win the title- however, in appalingly unlucky fashion, Sainz’s Corolla broke down just
300m from the finish on the final stage of the RAC rally, the last event of the year. Sainz
was forced to retire and gave Makinen the title instead, therefore missing out on his second title
by such a small degree. 1999 came as the final year of the 20th century, and with it Toyota was
able to take their third manufacturers title after 5 years with the Corolla.
Makinen claimed his fourth and final win for Mitsubishi, a truly incredible feat. A feat so
incredible, Mitsubishi decided to honour him by launching a special version of the Evo 6, dubbed
the Tommi Makinen edition. Its regularly claimed to be one of if not the best Evos ever. Ford also
upgraded this year, finally putting the lengthy Escort rallying legacy to bed by replacing it with
the brand new Ford Focus RS WRC, with Mcrae at the wheel. Like many of its peers, it was fitted with
a turbocharged 2.0L inline 4 making about 300hp. Other manufacturers were also joining the brawl,
such as Seat, Skoda, Citroen and Hyundai. However the late 90’s had also shown a few cracks in the
ruleset. Of course, World Rally Car had come along to modernise the championship, but it was becoming
clearer and clearer that these 4WD turbocharged WRC monsters might not be the completely dominant
beasts they should be. From 1993 to 1999, the FIA also ran the 2.0L world rally cup. The
rules stated that engines had displacements of no more than 2.0L, had to be front wheel drive
and had to be naturally aspirated. Because of these rules, the 1.6 and 2.0L cars were much,
much lighter than their WRC peers. Cars like the Peugeot 308 Maxi, the Renault Clio maxi and the
Seat Ibiza Kit Car were incredibly nimble on the tarmac. They began to dominate on tarmac heavy
events like the Tour De Corse and Rally Catalunya, even snatching away wins from the WRC teams.
Sure, they weren’t going to keep up on gravel or snow, but their steamrolling of tarmaced events
made them appear more like circuit racers rather than outright rally cars. Despite only operating
for six years, it saw fierce competition- General Motors took the title in 1993, Skoda in 1994,
Peugeot in 1995, Seat got a hatrick from 1996 to 98, and Renault took the last championship in
1999. The FIA chose to rework the championships- the 1.6L class would be replaced by the Super
1600 Junior World Rally Championship, and the 2.0L class would be replaced by the Super 2000
Production World Rally Championship, all in an attempt to bring better balance. With all
these changes happening in such a short amount of time, going into the 21st century had the rallying
looking a lot different from years past. The Japanese had managed to dominate for almost
a decade- but with new rules attracting new manufacturers to join the fray, would it last?