[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.

 

[slartibartfast229]

I was delighted when these Kyosho Lancias returned to the stores.
And I also bought this Monte winner, to go along with a Wurth sponsored version - also driven by Rohrl.....

 

[MerkurKing16]

I had an 037 at some point. First I lost the box, then I lost the model.

Yours is very nice, love the night stage versions!

 

[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

 

[slartibartfast229]

Superb model and photographs.
From the glory days of AUTOart.

 

[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 .

 

[Scuddy]

Great collection theme and such nice cars!

 

[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!!!

 

[kasparek]

Very nice collection. Some of my favourite subjects.
I think Delta 4WD/Integrale 8V /Integrale 16V really deserve some "good" model at a reasonable price.
For Integrale 8/16V there are also BBR models, better than this 4WD by Top Marques, but I think they are too expensive for what they are.

Model makers! These 3 Delta are the most winning and historical ones, more than S4 and more than Integrale Evoluzione!
But pay a lot of attention in front grill/lights: it's difficult to do them properly, as for Bmw M3 E30.

 

[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.