[TopGun]

Hi all guys,
in the very next days after the legendary win of Sebastien Loeb at the Montecarlo Rally driving the brand new Ford Puma Rally1, I decided to share with you my collection of the winner cars at this fashinating rally, from 1970 to nowadays, so the period which is socalled the Modern Rally Era.

It's not an exhaustive collection, since for space reasons I decided to get 1 sample of each car version, so you won't see multiple Lancia Stratos or Alpine A110, but it represents a very good example of the evolution of rally cars during these 52 years, stepping from Group 4 to Group B, from Group A to WRC and finally WRC Plus regulations.

So starting from 1970, here we have a beautiful Porsche 911S made by Spark, driven by the great Bjorn Waldegard.
Made in resin, it is a nice representation of the official car which already won the Montecarlo Rally also in the previous 2 years.

 

[TopGun]

Superb thread idea! And great pics, too

Thanks mate

Waiting to see what else you will post!
I have some Monte Carlo winners in 1/18th scale, but I won't be adding the 2022 winning Puma to my collection - if it arrives in scale.
It's just too butt ugly......

Thank you Slarti!!! I'm actually looking forward to a Puma Rally1 model, since it's the best looking of the new cars imo

 

[TopGun]

The second model of my collection of Rally Montecarlo Winners comes from 1971 and is the Alpine A110, driven to success by future Toyota Team Europe founder Ove Anderson. The Alpine A110 was probably the best and most equilibrated rally car of that years, quick and reliable both on tarmac and gravel, specially thanks to its light weight. For this car I've chosen the best on the market, so the Kyosho model produced many years ago with its promotional box: this model, with its stunning metallic blue color, is reproduced in snow specs, as can be seen by the thin tires, and is fully openable with a great number of details on the body, in the engine compartment and in the interiors as well, surely a must have for all rally fans.

 

[TopGun]

The third model of my collection is from 1972 and for any Italian and Lancia fan it represents a sort of myth!!! The Lancia Fulvia HF 1600 won the 1972 Rally Montecarlo driven by Sandro Munari against any forecast... the Alpine and Porsche Teams were almost unbeatable, the French car was light and quick, the German was the most powerful, while the small Fulvia was the oldest car on the field, almost of the end of production in its street version, since Lancia was already working on the futuristic Stratos. Despite all these consideration the Lancia won with a fantastic last night on the Turini stage and Munari achieved his 1st victory in the world's most important rally.
Autoart produced this pure gem many years ago and today it still represents one of the masterpieces of this brand. It's fully opening and it's a pleasure to search and discover all the small details they put in this model. Enjoy the mythic #14!!!

 

[TopGun]

In 1973 was another winning race for the Alpine A110, well a sort of domination indeed with the blue French cars filling the final podium with Andruet, Anderson and Nicolas, while in 1974 the Montecarlo Rally wasn't raced due to the energetic crisys.
So the next step in my collection is 1975, with the first win of the futuristic Lancia Stratos HF, driven by Sandro Munari. The model in object is by Kyosho and is a discontinued and quite old one, but also one of the old school models with plenty of details and fully opening. Actually it's not perfect, I still can't understand why they designed the rear wheels wells with such a wrong shape, but despite this particular is by far the best reproduction of this Alitalia Lancia Stratos on the market.

 

[TopGun]

The Stratos was a completely new car expressly design to compete in the world rally championship, taking the best from the former Lancia competitors... Light like the French Alpine A110 and powerful like the German Porsche 911, thanks to its V6 Ferrari engine the Lancia Stratos quickly became the new rally dominator. The French press was so obsessed by this car that they nicknamed it "la bête a gagner", the winning beast... And so it easily won at Montecarlo again and again making a legendary 3 in a row, again with Sandro Munari at the steering wheel. Here we have the 1977 car, again a Kyosho model, with the aerodynamic package introduced by Lancia from 1976 and the legendary Alitalia livery.

 

[TopGun]

Really cool idea with this thread. Your cars are great and that diorama is really cool.

Thank you mate!!! 😃

 

[TopGun]

The Stratos could have won for many more years if Fiat hadn't decided to focus their resouces on the 131 Abarth, infact the 1978 was a season in which Lancia raced with limited budget against their relatives from Turin. The Montecarlo rally was raced by Lancia with 2 cars for Munari and Bacchelli, but unfortunately the former winner of the last 3 editions was forced to retire due to engine failure, while the 2nd Stratos just arrived 10th overall. In this strange and very snowy 1978 rally a Porsche was able again to win, 8 years after the last Waldegard win, and was a private Porsche 911 RS 3.0, driven by Jean Pierre Nicolas, prepared by the famous specialist Almeras Freres, with its elegant blue and gold Gitanes livey.
The model of this car has been greatly reproduced by Spark, in snow and night specs as can be seen by the small Fuchs wheels well inside the bodywork. As usual for any Spark models the shape and the details on the model are at the top, but being made by resin, you can't unfortunately open any door.

 

[TopGun]

In 1979 was again a Stratos to win the Montecarlo rally, with the private blue car by Team Chardonnet and Bernard Darniche at the steering wheel, so my collection steps up to 1980, when the German driver Walter Rohrl won the race with the Fiat 131 Abarth. The Italian car was at the top of its development and Rohrl showed all his talent during this snowy race, winning against the still competitive Chardonnet Stratos and his team mate Waldegard.
The model in my collection couldn't be anything different by the well known Kyosho version, one of the unicorns I had to find with a lot of difficulty during these years, despite in the last period models by Solido and Ixo are also available... but Kyosho quality is out of discussion and so here it is, fully opening, with a superb engine compartment and a huge number of detail on it.

But in this 1980 edition also another Fiat was a real hero of the race, driven by a young Attilio Bettega. Infact the small Ritmo 75 Abarth of Group2 was able to win the mythic Turini special stage againt the Group4 monsters, taking advantage of its light weight and agility on the snow, entering directly in the history of the Montecarlo Rally. A final sixth position overall was the final result of the small Ritmo, just behind a Golf GTI Gr.2 driven by Per Eklund. In the following images the model made by Ottomobile, with a wheel swap to tarmac specs made by me, together with the winning sister.

 

[TopGun]

In 1981 some new cars arrived in the World Rally Championship, despite being the last year with Group4 regulations for the top cars, infact both Audi and Renault started to race respectively with the Quattro and the 5 Turbo. While the German car was going to write new rules in the development of the future rally cars with the advent of the 4x4 transmission, the French car was exploiting the experience made in the previous years in F1 with turbocharged engines, with small engine displacement and very high power.
The nice Renault 5 Turbo was actually the winning car of the 1st race of the 1981 season, becoming the 1st turbocharged car to win a world rally, a great result obtained by Jean Ragnotti.
For long time I've searched for the Universal Hobbies version of the winning Renault 5 Turbo, being this model openable and nicely reproduced in overall, but after some pictures comparison with the real car, I noticed it was quite inaccurate for what regarding some logos position, while the cheapest version made by Ixo for Altaya was perfect from this point of view... so at the end I've bought one of this closed diecast models, which despite the budget market fascia, are reproduced with a perfect shape and a good attention to graphics.

 

[TopGun]

Time to move on to the next year, and so we arrive to 1982. Audi is the favourite team, the 4x4 transmission could be a lethal weapon in snowy conditions as the Montecarlo Rally could be, but the weather's God is not agree. Infact this edition of the rally is very dry, the perfect condition for the 2 wheels drive cars to exploit all their potential. And also the fate helps in this direction, since 2 of the 3 Audi Quattro are forced to retire due to accidents (Mouton and Cinotto), while the only one which was able to finish the race had surrend against a Walter Rohrl on fire, at the wheel of the Opel Ascona 400 in Rothmans colors.
This car in this colors had always been one of my favourite Group 4 cars, I can't explain why... It simply has a unique elegance, the Rothmans blue and the gold and red stripes are simple but tremendously efficient on this car. The visual effect in my opinion is great!!! And Sunstar made a very good job on this model, with 4 openings, working suspensions and several small details like the brushes on the headlights, except for the very poor exhaust pipe. I have a plan to update it with a better and more realistic one, together with a couple of Gotti rims for the front wheels, as it raced actually with different rims on front and rear wheels.

 

[TopGun]

Next car is from 1983, and is still a Walter Rohrl's winning car!!! Lancia introduced its new Group B car, the Rally 037, in 1982 with still some problems to solve under the reliability point of view. Then in 1983 they introduced the Evo1 version, quickly brought to victory by the German champion at the Montecarlo rally. This was the 1st chapter of the epic battle between Lancia and Audi during the 1983 season, which ended with the little David defeating the great Goliath .
Coming to the model, here we have a Kyosho Lancia 037, 1st edition, in night running setup and its astonishing Martini livery. As you may know the model is fully openable, with the rear engine compartment as the real eye catcher part. The 2.2 liter Volumex supercharged engine is showed with a noticeable level of detail, considering the model is 20 years old. Also in the front compartment and interiors you can fully enjoy a good number of details, which at the end make this Kyosho model a must have for all rally addicted.

 

[TopGun]

Hello again, now it's time to move to 1984!!! It was again a victorious rally for Walter Rohrl, the third in a row, on the third different car, this time the Audi Quattro A2. And this was also a dream race for the German Team, after 3 previous partecipations without the glory of the victory, although the car was always considered the favourite due to the 4x4 transmission, filling the rest of the podium with the cars driven also by Stig Blomqvist and Hannu Mikkola.
The model for this 1984 Rally of Montecarlo is a precious and rare Autoart, just made in Dealer Edition with an Audi branded box. It also comes completed of the HB decals, not present on the rest of AA Audi Quattro.
What to say about this model... pure beauty, one of the best examples of AA old school craftmanship... the external shape is perfect, the interiors are very much detailed and the engine bay is great, also better than the most recent S1 version. Indeed this is one of my favourite models inside my collection... so now enjoy the pictures

 

[TopGun]

Hello guys,
here I am again to show you a new winning car of the Montecarlo Rally! Next year in the list is 1985, when the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, the newest Group B car on the field, driven by Ari Vatanen won the rally against Audi Quattro Sport SWB and Lancia 037. This was the new beast to beat, with just the family feeling of a normal Peugeot 205, but a powerful mid-rear engine developing 500HP and integral transmission; after some shocking (for the other challengers) winning races in 1984, the little french car would have won the World Championship at the end of the season.

The model representing this car is from Ottomobile and is part of the rally set they presented some time ago, together with a van and a trailer. So as usual for Otto, the model is a resin cast not open, but with a great shape and a decent level of details. Moreover, it comes with a removable light pod on the front bumper.

 

[TopGun]

Let's continue the show with 1986, the tragic 1986 which have seen the end of the Group B era due to a sequence of severe incidents due the high power of the last evolutions of these cars... Montecarlo was won by Henry Toivonen and Sergio Cresto, driving the new Lancia Delta S4 which already won the last race of the 1985 season at the debut, always with Toivonen at the drive. This was a victory conquered by the flying finn against the destiny, since at a certain point he almost destroied the Delta S4 during a transfer between 2 special stages, having a frontal crash with a street car driven by a drunk men. The Lancia Team started to repair the car piece by piece at every assistance until they fixed most of the problems, except a different wheelbase between LHS and RHS due to the frontal crash. Although this, Toivonen was able to race at an incredible pace, finally winning the Montecarlo Rally with over 4 minutes on the Peugeot 205 T16 Evo2 driven by Salonen. This was the race which placed Toivonen among the biggest drivers, but unfortunately it was also his last win, before the dramatic Tour de Corse where he crashed and died into the burning Delta S4.

The model for this season couldn't be nothing else that the Autoart Lancia Delta S4, the 1st release of AA for this model together with the 1985 RAC. And this is one of that models in which Autoart obtained one of its best results in terms of shape, opening and details... surely the engine bay is not in pair with real masterpieces like the Zonda, but it deserves a decent rating for what Autoart put inside. The real shame is Autoart didn't manage to make the front hood completely open, giving us just the possibility to open the small vane to see the spare wheel, but not opening fully like the rear one... it would have been really orgasmic...

 

[TopGun]

Next car in the list is from 1987 and is still a Lancia Delta, but in Group A specs... infact after the tragic 1986 season FISA decided as you may know to delete the Group B regulation and to promote Group A cars as the new protagonists of the World Rally Championship.
Lancia was one of the fastest brand to prepare a new car for the 1987 season, starting from a normal 2WD hatchback and turning it into a sporty 4WD turbocharged weapon called Delta HF 4WD. Actually Lancia dominated the 1987 season, actually starting from Montecarlo, where Miki Biasion and Tiziano Siviero won against Audi 200 Quattro and Mazda 323 GTX.
The model in collection comes from Top Marques, at the moment the only brand who decided to reproduce this 1st version of the Integrale in 1/18 scale. In particular this is one of the first released, with some coarse mistakes like the double exhaust tipical of the street version but absolutely not used in the race version. Strangely it miss also a roof antenna... one day I'll put my hands on this model to fix these mistakes and make it closer to the real thing.
For the rest it's a decent models, surely overrated at the original price of 200€, because I really can't see better details with respect to an Ottomobile model: fortunately I won it on eBay at a very fair price .

 

[TopGun]

In 1988 the Lancia Delta HF 4WD won again the Montecarlo Rally driven by the French crew Bruno Saby/Jean Francois Fauchille, again with the Martini Racing livery, so according to my rule of having 1 car per model, I jumped directly to 1989, when Lancia won again the race but with the new Delta HF Integrale 8V, again driven by Biasion/Siviero. The new car introduced during 1988 was larger than the HF 4WD, thanks to new wheel arches, and more powerful. After winning the 1988 World Championship, it started the 1989 season with a 1-2-3 finish at the Montecarlo Rally, with Auriol in 2nd place and Saby in 3rd place. Mazda and Toyota was just spectator of the Lancia domination in this race, with more than 12 minutes of delay from the winning crew.
The model I used to fill this year was originally a Mondomotors Lancia Delta 8V, highly modified by me to reach high-end standards. Starting from the missing Martini logos on the body, continuing with photoetched parts here and there, repainted interior with fabric safety belts with photoetched details, 3d drawed and printed (by me) new Speedline rims with brake coolers on the front wheels, a metallic engine repair under the front bumper, realistic rear mudflaps, lowered ride height, a new metallic exhaust, a new antenna and other things I'm surely forgotting at the moment
I now let the pictures speak, enjoy!!!

 

[TopGun]

Yes mate you're right... Until now just Sunstar/Mondomotors was able to make a decent front-end for these cars.

 

[TopGun]

Hi there, time to move to 1990!!! At the end of the previous season Lancia introduced the 3rd evolution of the Delta, called Integrale 16v, with a new 16 valves air inlet system able to give more power to the 2 litre engine. Unuseful to be said, the new car won at its debut at the Sanremo rally (with the famous red livery) and was the car to be beaten for the 1990 season. Infact it started the new Championship winning with Didier Auriol at the steering wheel, after a hard battle with the Toyota Celica GT4 driven by Carlos Sainz.
The model in my collection is a Sunstar, basically a modified version of the Integrale which I've shown you in the previous post, with a different engine hood with the typical bulge for the 16v air inlet. Also this model has been modified from its original shape and is one of my very first modifications, so absolutely not perfect but already decent. According to my limited experience when I modified it, the level of details is lower than what I've made on the 1989 Delta, but it's almost on pair with much expensive models. New interiors with aluminium paint, realistic safety belts with photoetched parts, metal pedals, kevlar wrapped seats and new rims cloned by Kyosho with original Sunstar hubs to have rotating wheels, with front brake coolers are the main changes.

 

[TopGun]

Hello guys,
time to move to 1991, when finally Toyota was able to break the Lancia domination with the already competitive Celica GT Four (ST165). Driven by Carlos Sainz and Luis Moya, the Japanese car was the stronger challenger of the Delta HF Integrale 16v already in 1990, arriving 2nd overall by 52s behind Miki Biasion and in 1991 was the winning car after an epic battle with the new Ford Sierra RS Cosworth driven by a young Francois Delecour. The French pilot was in 1st position until the penultimate stage, but unfortunately during the last one a puncture forced him to lost more than 6 minutes, giving the final victory to Carlos Sainz and the Toyota Celica GT Four.
The model in my collection is the great looking Ottomobile, produced with the typical nightpod on the hood and brake coolers on the front wheels. As usual for Ottomobile standard the overall shape is very nice, with right proportions and enough details for the price paid. I'm a Lancia fan but I must admit this car is really nice and Otto made a great job on it (I cannot say the same for the Top Marques version which has always looked odd to me).