Citroën WRC back in the game with all-new hot hatch

21 September, 2016

 

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The FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) hasn’t been the same without Citroën Racing present, but now they’re back, and they’re packing more muscle and less fat than ever before

We’ve just caught wind that Citroën Racing are to return to the FIA WRC, with an all-new Citroën Racing WRC C3 concept. Although not the final design that will make the gravel and tarmac, it is said to be extremely close. 

There’s something about red cars that makes them always look faster, but this time, that’s backed up by a new power train. Following the international trend of smaller-capacity engines, the Citroën will run a 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbocharged unit that outputs 283kW (380hp) at the flywheel — that’s 60kW (80hp) more than their 2015 WRC car. Usually, an increase in power would suit most, but not Citroën, as they’ve now dropped a further 25kg of weight to help performance. 

There’s no doubt it’ll be a potent package, but we do wish they’d make a road-going variant for us mere mortals to test drive. The WRC version is said to make its debut at the Monte Carlo Rally, January 2017.

Images: Citroën

Performance art

Shelby’s targets were Superformance — a South African company that wanted to sell its versions of these cars in the US — and the US-based Factory Five. Their defence was that the name and shape of the Cobra car were abandoned when Shelby American ceased production of these particular models back in the 1960s.
Shelby countered with: “We spent millions of dollars creating the name and the car and winning the world championship. These knock-off-car guys don’t deserve the credit or the profit for what my team and Ford accomplished in the ’60s.”
Superformance painted an even bigger target on its back by also producing a version of Shelby’s Daytona coupé. Other cars in its production stable were Mk1 GT40 and 1962 Corvette Grand Sport replicas, but we’ll focus here on the Daytona.

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.