Supporting the Eifel Rallye Festival has always been a priority at the Rally Group B Shrine. Here’s a partial list and short description of the Group B cars, Group S and prototypes that are registered to take part in this year’s festivities;
Renault Maxi 5 Turbo – 1986, Gr. B – Neil Brighton/Peter Fidalgo
This Renault was built already in 1996 with many original parts and new fabrication where necessary at a time when it was not popular to copy group B cars. Arguably the earliest and most accurate recreation of a Maxi Turbo.
Audi quattro A2 – 1984, Gr. B – Thomas Aigner/Andreas Zeidler
This Audi quattro was converted from a production car into a copy of the 1984 factory car by the Reichert company in 2006 and drove in HB livery at slowly sideways for a few years. In 2010, it was sold to Greece where it was driven by Vasileios Velanis before returning to Walter Münch in Germany in 2014.
Opel Kadett 400 – 1984, Gr. Prototyp – Steven Kaiser/Volker Hess
Apart from Group B rallying, Henk van der Linde had always been a fan of the Opel 400-series (Ascona and Manta). When he heard at the beginning of the new century that there had also been a “Kadett 400” project, Van der Linde wanted to know more and started tracing these vehicles but unfortunately did not find much information.
Renault 5 Turbo – 1984, Gr. B – Markus Trapp/Sebastian Trapp
This Renault came as a Turbo 2 in 2003 from France to Germany and was modified to Tour de Corse spec which meant different front suspension and coil spring and damper units instead of the torsion bar suspension.
Nissan 240RS – 1983, Gr. B – Achim Loth/Paulo de Moura
This car (chassis 006) is one of three Nissan 240RS that, in 2008, were brought from Kenya to Germany for participation in Slowly Sideways events. Unfortunately, the restoration process was not quite as easy as had been hoped because there are hardly any spare parts to find anywhere in the world, all 240RS parts seem to have vanished.
Audi quattro A2 – 1983, Gr. B – Rainer Lohr/Jacqueline Franz
Rainer Lohr owns this quattro since the year 2000 and began in 2005 to rebuild it into a copy of the Audi quattro that Hannu Mikkola drove in Corsica in 1983.
Renault 5 Turbo – 1984, Gr. B – Christian Klein/Eric Marnette
Christian Klein bought this R5 Turbo in 2013 when it was still in the French Rally Group F configuration, but had not been raced for years and was not in good condition.
Opel Ascona 400 – 1983, Gr. B – Andreas Hoppe/Ramona Hoppe
This is the third Ascona 400 that came back from East Africa in 2009 to Germany where it was restored during one year to perfect original condition by Andreas Hoppe and his friends.
Opel Manta 400 – 1985, Gr. B – Frank Höhner/Michael Stoffel
In 2022, Frank Höhner took over this Manta 400, which was built from a road car by the Wolf family. With regard to the paintwork, this Opel represents the car that Guy Frequelin drove in the French championship in 1985.
Ford RS200 Evo2 – 1986, Gr. S – John Wheeler/Scott Wheeler
John Wheeler is the spiritual father of the RS200 and through 1984 to 1986 as Chief Engineer for Ford Motorsport was responsible for the design and development of the RS200 for both road and rally applications.
Audi quattro A2 – 1984, Gr. B – Jürgen Reeb/Christopher Hick
It took Jürgen Reeb two years (2011 to 2013) to build this Audi quattro A2 rally car. After the restoration, it was displayed on several events in Europe and also used on the 2013 edition of the Deutschland Classic.
Opel Manta 400 – 1986, Gr. B – Sascha Kaiser/Joshua Hess
The Kaiser family tried to find the original Hero Manta 400, but unfortunately remained unsuccessful. Finally, in 2015, a normal standard Manta was completely disassembled and faithfully recreated as Manfred Hero’s car. Many parts came from the warehouse of the Kaiser family’s Opel collection.
Toyota Celica Twincam Turbo – 1986, Gr. B – Gerd Dicks/Dani Portela
As for many years he ran the engine workshop at TEE and later at TMG in Cologne, it is only logical that quite early on Gerd Dicks secured himself one of the cars they built and so this Celica TCT has been in the Dicks family for more than twenty years.
Lancia Delta S4 – 1985, Gr. B – Rolf Wyss/Oswald Backes
Rolf Wyss found this Lancia Delta S4 in Italy as a rolling chassis without engine and gearbox. The chassis number 151 did not indicate that it had pursued a motorsport career since usually numbers smaller than 200 were used for the road-going S4s with numbers over 200 reserved for the Group B competition cars.
Lancia Rallye 037 – 1984, Gr. B – Robert Whitehouse/Yvonne Mehta
This Lancia 037 came to the UK in 1995 and was restored by Gareth Williams of Sweep Motorsport including its original Olio-Fiat livery. It is owned and driven by Rob Whitehouse, a New Zealander who lives in London.
Audi Sport quattro – 1984, Gr. B – Dermott Simpson/David Johnston
Several years ago, Dermott Simpson bought the original Sport quattro (chassis RS02) which was driven by Michèle Mouton on the RAC Rally of 1984. Then came the problem: What to do when you try to conserve the works car as good as possible and at the same time like to drive it on special stages. But Dermott came up with a solution.
Audi Sport quattro S1 – 1984, Gr. B – Claude Millet/Theo Millet
Claude Millet drove for three years in the Peugeot 205 Rallyecrosscup and thus is used to motorsport. As he could not find an original Sport quattro, he built this car out of a long quattro himself. It took him ten years to find all the parts needed or to remake the ones missing and about 1500 hours of labour went into this project.
Renault 5 Turbo – 1984, Gr. B – Frank Hachmann/Sven Flöter
This Renault 5 Turbo is owned by Frank Hachmann since 1992 and was completely rebuilt between 2003 and 2005. The engine has 1397cc and with an engine kit from Renault Sport and a Devil exhaust delivers 200bhp.
MG Metro 6R4 – 1986, Gr. B – Patrick Berghaus/Karin John
Father and son Berghaus upgraded their 6R4 from a near standard Clubman spec car to this reliable 350 bhp strong Clarion-Metro and copied the 6R4 as used on the Hunsrück Rally in 1986.
In April of 2019, a representative for the Hadjopulos Collection, whom purchased the Lotus systems car at the 
The Shrine’s owner thus immediately went hard at work by contacting the former Lotus engineers involved in the project back in the 1980’s; all were keen to the idea of a restoration. However, untimely delays made for a difficult time-table to set things up between all of the parties. The subsequent loss of the initial excitement unfortunately made Mr. Hadjopulos backtrack and the restoration project abandoned. The unique Peugeot is once again being scheduled to be put up at auction in January 2020 on 
The Rally Group B Shrine also received a request by renowned Octane Magazine to take part in their Group B-special. It was an honour to share the story of how Group B missed the mark on its circuit racing aspirations. While the article published in the May issue was heavily abridged, you can find the complete article 
On a more personal note, it was a delight to have my very own Group B inspired car project featured in a fan publication, Skyrocket Magazine, thanks to Heath Scotchford and the Scirocco Register. Albeit quite humble and uncanny, the project has huge personal significance and has been literally life-changing. More can be learned about this very special tribute to the 1980’s 
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