When The WRC Met Its Match - The Era Of The Kit Car

An underrated era of the WRC?

How good are you on tarmac ? French manufacturers : Oui

Gilles Panizzi was unreal on tarmac with kit cars .

The 306 maxi will always be a stunner to me.

As a child who grew up on a diet of V-Rally 2 and late 90's British Rally Championship season reviews, I adore the F2 cars. Smaller Super Tourers, but with mudflaps and a gloriously high revving NA engine - some of the most nostalgic cars for me in all of rallying.

The sound of those engines is legendary. Some points to keep in mind. The 2l kit cars were allowed to have almost 300kg less minimum weight than the WRC cars. This resulted in the opportunity to use softer tyres and the weight advantage outweighed the power deficit (although the Citroen were rumored to have north of 300hp) and on tarmac traction was also pretty good. So, close to WRC power but much lighter. Awesome times.

With Rally2 getting faster in 2025 and Rally1 losing hybrid we might see something like this again.

YES, I love the kit car era. The sounds are incredible and I always love fwd

truly one if not the most underrated rally era and my faviourite, not only for what they have done but because of the concept of their driving. we went from really raw heavy machines sliding all across the track to nimble gentle cars, no unnecessary oversteer, just surgical perfection. the fact that it was N/A didnt stopped them from putting well over 300hp on those engines, some say the xsara reaching 340hp

The thing i remember the most about the F2 podiums, and eventual wins by thr Xsara, was all of the WRC drivers complaining about not getting awarded full points. I particularly remember Calos and Juha making the biggest fuss about it. Juha in particular was downright nasty about it, and i can honestly say that whole incident made him lose a lot of standing in my young teenage eyes. I still look back fondly at F2, it is as exactly the kind of underdog story you wanted to see. It was practically BTCC/TOCA SuperTouring Cars on the street. It was just a joy to watch, and the unmistakable sound made it even better. Its sad that while F2 KitCars made the sport fun to watch in the late 90's, that many of the same Apendix-J rules make the sport boring with the current Class1 cars. Personally, i could do with some more S2000 right about now.

Living in Corsica, i had the chance to see WRC juste near m'y school every year. Kit cars were so good to.see and hear. 2.0 l N/A @9000 RPM was huuuge.

I always liked the F2 kit car class, because it seemed like the closest match to everyday consumer cars at the time. I imagine it was a great advertisement for those particular car models. They should really bring it back…

its one of those super specific things ive been obsessed for a while now, kit cars were amazing and in my opinion the epitome of the 90s. Light, NA, flared fenders with masters of tarmac driving them. What more do you want? This wouldnt have happened without Gran Turismo 4 that actually used the xsara kit car in the game and it was the only rally car using a 2wd system so i had to dig into that....and the rest is history. I'm planning to build one of those cars one day.

This is the only good video that explains the F2 Kit Car history, congrats, finally ! Maybe another video about the S1600 and/or the S2000 would also be great to see !

My absolute favorite set of rally cars. The kit cars of the 90s and how they evolved. I wish i could pluck them all from history and keep them in my garage.

This is why I love throwing my Xsara VTS around, no VVTI no VVL no fancy crap. Just pure 2L goodness. One of the greatest sounding 4cyl engines

Like most people i loved this period in rallying, i competed at national level in the UK for over 20 years, now i would not walk to the end of my drive the watch the WRC pass, the WRC cars now are so divorced from what we could all buy from a dealership. I am convinced that another Group B type ban will happen sooner or later and that rallying as we knew it is finished ! Thanks for video, brought back some great memories.

Good video, thank you! As a Finn, following rally since the late 70s, I feel like there has been zillions of changes, for cars, classifications, rules, stages, speed, gravel to tarmac....and a whole bunch of totally different kind of localised rallies but still on international level. We have always had like 10 different level/classes of cars and rallies. It is and has been the same organisation changing rules and cars every year to make rally even more international and interesting to both car companies and people. This year is going to be a "gap year" cause now the rules are......😮😢😢😂😂. And Kalle is having fun with all kinds of things, which moves fast❤❤. That is maybe the "biggest" change that the new generation is bringing with them? I am 23 and I am going to have fun, good for you Kalle❤. Ok, he has been driving since he was 8 yrs. old. First official, international rally at the age of 10 yrs. old.

WRC really needs to bring back an F2 style class. Simple cars based on actual factory models, 2wd and small displacement engines. Make rally cheap again, at least for manufacturers if not actual private teams.

Awesome cars, I think the 306 is my favourite !