The Group B Rally Car that every one has overlooked at one time or another - The Citroen BX 4TC
Thursday, March 17, 2016
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Group B Rallying was the maddest and craziest the World Rally Championships had ever been. The Group B rallying lasted from around 1982 to 1986 where drivers got killed and spectators too. The cars were ridiculously overpowered. In those days, Group B cars had little restrictions on technology, design and the even the number of homologated cars that would have to be sold to the public was less (about 200 cars or so, usually manufacturers ended up making less but got away with it). Very low weight was allowed with high-tech materials permitted, and there were no restrictions on boost (unlike the group A cars that actually form the basis of WRC rallying to this day). This usually resulted in the power output of Group B specials hitting 500bhp in 1986, the final year of Group B. Every big manufacturer wanted in on it as it was interesting. Performance and power without limits.
Anyway, unluckily, Citroen decided to enter Group B rallying in 1986 with a Citroen BX called the BX 4TC. That year, That year marked the deaths of Lancia S4 driver Henri Toivonen and co-driver Sergio Cresto as well as an incident at the Portugese Rally where a Ford RS200 went off the road and into the spectators. killing three and injuring thirty-one people. Of course, after all of this, Group B was laid to rest. sO the BX 4TC was too little, too late. We know about the too late part, as it was only in the final year of Group B that Citroen joined. But why was it too little a rally car until everyone would actually overlook this rally car over the others? The others are classics like the Lancia 037, Lancia S4, Peugeot 205 T16, Ford RS200, Audi Sport Quattro and more. But the Citroen, not many were...are aware of it. Including yours truly.
The Citroen BX was actually a strange rally car. It actually had the production car's complicated hydropneumatic suspension (magic carpet ride thingy) like any other larger Citroen of its day, and it had its super wedge shaped looks as well as a longish wheelbase (you wanted something short so that the car can turn easily on tight tracks). It didn't look like a rally car at all. But then again, neither did the Lancia Stratos in the late 1970s but that was a very short wheelbased car, so it could corner. The specially designed rally BX was called the BX 4TC and was not anything like the ones we could buy (The BX19GT was sold in Malaysia for a while). It also had wider arches and a fat bonnet hump. And lights....lots and lots of lights.
The 4TC had a very long nose because the turbocharged engine was mounted longitudinally (like in the Audi Quattro) unlike transversely in the usual BX. The engine was 2,141.5 cc (from the original Simca engine capacity of 2,155 cc) and took the five-speed manual gearbox from Citroën SM so that it can take the extra power .So because of the engine placement, it had a bonnet hump and extra length up front. But I don't think having such a engine so far in ahead of the front axle did wonders to the handling. Even if it had all wheel drive. A whole lot of re-engineering had gone into it and a whole lot of Citroen strangeness remained, as mentioned, like the road cars, the 4TC very surprisingly featured Citroen's hydropneumatic suspension. And 200 production cars had to be built, with the 2.1liter making 200ps (This was 1986 remember). All these work on the 4TX seemed like a lot. But it was too little actually.
The best result was sixth place in the 1986 Swedish Rally. The 4TC only managed to participate in three rallies before the Group B class was banned , following the death of Henri Toivonen in the Lancia Delta S4 at the Tour de Corse Rally.
According to what was written, Citroen was already discouraged by the car's poor performance by then and when Group B rallying was banned, it was the final nail in the coffin of the 4TC. Even the production version was a failure at the time as Citroën was only able to sell 62 units of the production version of the 4TC. Reports at the time said that the 4TC was plagued by build quality and reliability problems. So much so that it actually forced Citroën to buy back many of these 4TCs so that they wouldn't have to deal with warranty and claims arising from the car. Imagine that. The car had such awful quality that the company who made it wanted to buy it back. It is as rare as heck these days with about 40 or so in private ownership.
In February of this year (2016), a 4TC sold for 61,984 Euros at the Retromobile 2016 auctions in Paris. It may have been an unknown Group B rally car. But it is still a piece of history. And the price paid for it is proof.
So the question is....are there any driveable, normal Citroen BXs (like the one pictured above) left in Malaysia and would anyone be crazy enough to modify one so that it would look like a 4TC - mad arches, bonnet bulge and all? A man can dream can he.
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