If you’re into rallying and all things with an internal combustion engine and 4WD, then you certainly know who is the man behind the wheel of the Peugeot 405 featured in Climb Dance. Before Peugeot started to race the 405, the 205 in Group B specification was in the rallying world’s limelight.
Rally driver extraordinaire Ari Vatanen drove the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 Evolution 1 Group B to victory in the 1985 Rallye Automobile de Monte Carlo and the 1985 International Swedish Rally. Yes, I’m referring to the car designated by the serial number C11, the one featured in the adjacent video and photo gallery. It’s a monster of a machine, a proper rallying icon.
This rally-ready brute will be put up for auction by RM Sotheby’s this May. There is no official estimate for how much the Peugeot 205 T16 will bring at auction, but do look forward to a bidding war to remember. Even though it resembles what is probably the most popular hot hatchback of the 1980s, this thing is extremely different from the road-going variant of the 205 T16.
The belly of the beast is a mid-mounted 1.8-liter XU8T turbo engine with a thumping great Garrett T31 turbocharger and Bosch mechanical fuel injection. At 3 bars of boost, the Peugeot 205 T16 Group B rally car produces 550 HP and 361 lb-ft (490 Nm), an insane output for a subcompact car that weighs approximately 2,006 pounds (910 kg). Then again, that insanity is what brought Peugeot the title in '85 and '86.
The other highlight of the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 in Group B specification is its innovative suspension design, which allowed Peugeot to change suspension settings with ease during service. For all the right reasons, it’s no wonder then the Peugeot 205 T16 Group B came to be the most successful car to compete in the last two years of the most prominent class of the World Rally Championship.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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