Rallying. To get from A to B on inhospitable roads in the shortest possible time. From long, trans-Alpine hauls of the 1960s to man-made stadium courses of the nineties and noughties, the venues and weaponry have changed, but the attitude hasn’t.

Before special stage rallying, events resembled a treasure hunt with a concours at the end, cars mostly standard apart from the addition on extra lights and perhaps daringly exposing their wheelnuts.
Stages - shorter blasts in closed sections -- made the cars into more specialized animals. At first that meant adding more power and chucking away bits to make them lighter, finishing off with better tyres.

By the ‘70s, you needed a big shopping list to keep up with the big boys. By the ‘80s, it meant hand-crafting cars that did not even superficially resemble the ones you could buy from the showroom. Rally cars evolved fast to match the events, working through Group 2 to Group 4, getting gradually fiercer until the terrifying, firebreathing Group B cars that were, frankly, too fast for their own good.

Things came to head in the 1985-86 seasons when outputs grew to 500+ bhp, and the Audi quattro went head to head with specially built creations from Peugeot (T16), Ford (RS200) Austin Rover (Metro 6R4) and Lancia (Delta S4).

After fatal accidents in 1985 and ’86 on the Tour de Corse, claiming the lives of Attilio Bettega and Henri Toivenen, plus many spectators in Portugal, it all had to stop. After 1986, the World Rally championship was for cars built to Group A, or ostensibly based on standard cars, with four seats, of which 5000 a year had to be made. It didn’t seem to make much difference how fast they went. Today’s WRC cars resemble Group B cars, both in spirit and the way they go.

To put a works Mini together in 1964 took one man a couple of weeks. Colin McRae’s winning Subaru Impreza of 1995 cost something like £1/4m to build in a dedicated factory, a stone’s throw from where these pictures were taken. Built a World Rally Car now and there’s not much change from £1/2m each. No wonder today’s drivers are super-fit driving machines - a far cry from the days when certain of the original Flying Finns would disappear until the small hours, and not long later be screaming sideways in a Mini down the Col du Turini Mini.

But this is about the machinery. Here are seven cars that changed the face of rallying.

Click the links below to go to the individual stories:

Saab 96 Sport
Mini Cooper S
Porsche 911T Rallye
Ford Escort RS1800
Lancia Stratos
Audi quattro A2
Subaru Impreza 555