Hard to imagine, but when group B was banned the Rover Group had a lot of unsold 6R4's, in period you could pick one of these up when the hammer fell on group B for £15k partially built, they did have a successful life after group B in a class known as Clubman Spec, limited to 200bhp, the best footage of these in period would be with the late and great Tony Pond whom hammered one of these through the forests of the RAC rally in 86, he even gave the brutal Lancia Delta S4's a bloody good run for their money. Talking of Tony pond you should also check out his lap of the Isle of man TT track in a Rover Vitesse, more of less stock apart from tyres and record that was only beaten a few years ago in a AWD 600bhp Subaru, not widely known but an absolute driving legend in my eyes whom died too young.
I remember Tony Pond test driving the 6R4 in Donegal in 1984/5. The throttle jammed and the engine blew up. Prior to that his speed was jaw dropping and no one had ever seen a beast like this in rallying before. I believe there was an 8R4 rallied in the Paris Dakar one time. I spoke only yesterday to a mechanic who worked on that car as it was a v8 but that's another story for another day............
Some of the unfinished 6R4s got sold to rally crossers. No spec limits. Bolt on two turbo chargers and you get 800BHP. Downgrade to a road legal exhaust and you are stuck with only about 650 BHP. When the Sierra Cossie road car came out no-one wanted a road going 6R4. I bought one for 3k. Insurance was insane but it is the only car I have ever driven that was 'bike quick'.
Thanks for posting this video. I had a dear friend who used to race one of these cars in the UK. His was absolutely gorgeous, and I belive it was the only 6R4 with a lift off rear body. He did lots of work in refining the chassis dynamics and presented it beautifully. We even had Colin Mcrae land his ill fated helicopter at our family farm when he visited my mate to talk 6R4,s with him. Sadly, like Colin, my friend is no longer with us due to an accident on the Nurbergring.
V6 is based, as Stu said on the Cosworth DFV V8 that won more F1 championships than any other engine in F1 history. Awesome car, awesome history. Thanks Fullboost. Nice to see this and the Escort from last week.
Er, no. No relation at all to the Cosworth DFV. The MG 6R4 engine is based on the Rover V8 block, with a pair of cylinders lopped off. The F1 connection is the Repco RB620 V8 which won the F1 World Championships in 1966 and '7 in Brabham BT19 driven by Jack Brabham and Dennis Hulme repectively. The Repco was compact, light and reliable, but not as powerful as the DFV. Once the Cosworth DFV was properly developed, it blew the Repco away. Actually, Repco used the Oldsmobile block, which is almost the same as the Buick block. (I think this was because the Olds block had an extra head stud.) Buick being the origin of the Rover V8 - after Buick stopped making the design, Rover bought the design rights and put it back into production to great success
@@psk1w1 The development 6R4 only used the cut and shut Rover V8. The production 6R4 used a bespoke V6 designed by David Wood, who was a former Cosworth employee.
@@TheBlaert Spot on. Nothing to do with the Rover V8, apart from the V angle, I suppose. Also not based on the DFV, although it does include a few DFV ideas which is hardly surprising given David Wood's previous employers. So many myths about the V64V. For my part, I'd recommend not dropping a valve...it's quite expensive. :-(
@@sidbobby3233no, sadly another common misunderstanding, the V64V did not go in the XJ220. A very very modified relation to the V64V did end up in Jaguar endurance race cars, but shared almost none of the components.
The 6R4 is a beast and my favourite Group B car. It was an underdog compared to the turbo cars but the sheer scream of the bespoke V6 makes it one of a kind.
I believe Jaguar used a 3.5L version of this motor with twin turbos to power the XJ220. It had around 540bhp from the factory and is still one of the fastest accelerating cars they have ever made.
The original engine in the prototype metro 6r4 was a v6 made by cutting 2 cylinders off a Rover v8. The engine in the homologation cars was a bespoke design by ex Cosworth employee David Wood. It makes 250hp in clubman tune and 410 HP in international tune.
That type of fuel injection with the injection outlets above the stacks is bloody scary outside of a plenum. A backfire could be catastrophic..... I believe the engines in these also went on to power the TWR Jags at lemons. A BDG Escort and a Group B Metro in one week you are spoiling us.. Cheers
have a look at the injection on an Alfa Romeo 155 DTM car from the 90s. Pretty similar in design and power. 2.5ltr N/A V6 at 14000rpm making over 400bhp. The 3.5V6 in the XJR-10 was not extensively developed, so Jag went back to their V12. In this though, 300kw out of a N/A V6 at 13000 rpm? Yes please. Who needs a turbo? ;)
Seems to work pretty well for a lot of performance and racing engines bro. It's actually not uncommon at all. Everything from V8 Supercar engines to production superbike motors. It's funny, Sprintcar engines go the complete opposite way. Their mech injection outlets are in the head rather than in the inlet manifold
Why was every thing so awesome from the 80’s. Just so agricultural and simple. No over engineered bullshit. Love the injectors above the velocity stacks. Looks dangerous lol
the taste +smell was unbelievable - i was lucky enough to get into the service bay on the lombard once [1985 i think] playstation boys will never experience anything like that, no matter what year you are reading this
Not my favourite group B car, but still a star. Favourite would probably be the little 205 Pew-jo, but the Quatros with that 5 cylinder turbo, just made such a fantastic noise! Of all of them, the Quatro really was the only one based at all on the road car. It was pretty heavily modified, but the real Audi Quatro was in fact the starting point. You couldn't say that about most of the group B cars... Honourable mention to the 959 Porsche. They ran it a couple of times in the Paris Dakar but it never really raced as a group B car. It had 4 wheel drive and a very heavily turbo version, but it had a completely different rear suspension to all the previous 911s, and after the mid '90s, they started making all 911s with a rear end based on what had been in the 959, which was light-years better than all the previous generations of 911.... They still make 911s, and the rear end in them today, is still conceptually from the 959.... Notice that all the whiffle and bulldust about 911 Widow-Makers mostly stopped after the 959.... The problem with 911 Porkers, was not the rear engine, and the weight distribution, it was the design of the rear suspension, and now they've fixed it. Thank Group B for that....
yes the audi did sound nice, but about 2 foot of the shell was cut out of the middle, so at least the metro was close to the original size. sills,roof,bulkhead quarter panels etc were original tin + cut back as reqd. michelle mouton drove the quattro [very well] when i used to spectate.
I throught that cosworth had a hand in the engine as i was told that the V6 then in 1 form or another went on too power the XJ220 with couple of turbos. Any information would be massively appreciated. 😎😎✌✌👌👌👍👍
A wicked little Group B rally like the Ford RS 200 built for just one purpose. I believe this engine is used in the XJ220 Jaguar, i could be wrong, in the XJ220 it is twin turbo charged.
I read that this car was banned from Group B rallying. The cars were upgraded to 600 BHP. They were ridiculously fast and deadly to drive. Group B was known to be the maddest rally of all. Pity it isn't still in the UK. We sell off all of our heritage cars. Enjoy this legend.
Hi, I’ve got a load of detailed photos of the sister car to this one which I worked on at the Prodrive Heritage Museum. Let me know if you’d like me to send you any?
This is what all other group b cars should have been like, 400 bhp and bags of torque, simple to maintain (relatively) Cars like the Audis and Lancias were almost ludicrous in the power they produced cracking 600 bhp in some guises, it was bound to end in tears, and it did.
I only ever saw 1 of those 6r4's on the road. Some dick ran into a kerb, tore off the wheel, and abandoned it. It was there several days after as well.
Far more than that. The shell has many Metro panels, just cut back to make more room for suspension movement. Doors are normally Metro too and roof on some cars.
@@TheMRmadhatt if you get a metro roof sills,bulkhead, a pillars, b pillars, rear quarter panels + weld them together you get a bodyshell of a metro with a few bits missing, in which you weld a roll cage , and it gets a austin rover vin tag under the bonnet , just like a metro had. good enough for me....
The original gear boxes were made by Jack Knight Developments ... They signed a deal with Austin Rover to not supply any of their competitors .. then Ford approached and they turned them down .... Shame a great transmission and steering company.
Stewart... ... Chris who famous peddler. enough bulshit""""""!!!!!..Car was built by RED used by J Mac then bought by Brian Bell who had a big accident at Snetterton Circuit on a club event .. Your thoughts on engine are near 3.0 single plenium National and 3.0 slide throttles on full international car. in uk they could run 2.5 int injection or 2.8 single ... 2.7 never!!! .. Anyhow nice vid but Tim Ball.
My nieghbour used to have one of these but his was the v8version it was wrecked but he restored to its former glory and it sounded proper mean then one day he took it out in a farmers field but he forgot to put oil in it and it blew up and burnt to the ground there and then and a week later the guy committed suicide so the rest of the car was sold to pay for his funeral what a shame it was a nice car
Right door mirrors for the early Rothmans metros. Wrong door bar angles, fuse box (breaker panel) nothing like international spec. Engine is V64V the only engine ever designed exclusively for a rally car. Development engines were cut down V8 Rover/Buick 2 valve pushrod engines, cut down formula 1 engine is a complete inaccuracy and simply not true, sorry. Transmission was fergerson (FFD?) not hewland as far as I remember, non ackerman steering arms and goodness knows what other oddball bits this has been cobbled together with. Clubman shelled Press car perhaps but not the real Matter/David Richards Autosport (later Prodrive) shell or spec.
The presenter is obviously originally Scottish, but that fucking annoying upward inflection he has developed after every sentence is really bloody irritating. Oh, and the LHD version would've been driven by Hari Toivenen - not Henri.
