The steering never felt heavy but, with such low weight and high grip, quick reactions and considerable physical effort were needed to keep it balanced when pressing on hard. The traction was amazing and it was obvious why, it was so effective...

The penny didn’t drop at first. Lined up before us at Prodrive’s private test track, being warmed up by the mechanics, were a 1984 Porsche 911 SC/RS, as driven by Henri Toivonen, an ex-Jimmy McRae/Billy Coleman 1986 Metro 6R4 and an ex-François Chatriot BMW M3 from 1990.

Invitations to drive cars like this don’t roll in every week. These are the rare, historic rally cars that established Prodrive’s reputation after David Richards set the company up in 1984. They were comprehensively re-engineered in their day and every one of them was instantly competitive. They became great winners but why, I wondered, did Prodrive want us to drive them now? This costly exercise could not have been laid on merely for our entertainment, so I was quite puzzled.

Perhaps I should have guessed the answer. Prodrive is currently restoring a BMW M3, identical to the one seen here. The restoration project was found recently, locked away in a Moscow garage and its new owner returned it to Prodrive for a full restoration. They are very happy to take on this work, naturally showing a preference for genuine Prodrive original machines, which is easily identified on close inspection. Prodrive’s strict policy is to preserve the heritage and value of historic cars, so don’t even think of taking any old heap along and asking for a copy of what you see here. They won’t be interested but they do help customers to find and obtain genuine cars.

This has become a serious market, with restoration costs generally running well into six figures, but the completed car is likely to be worth considerably more than the total investment. One snag is that there weren’t many early Prodrive rally cars in the first place and even the wrecks, if you track one down, are worth a great deal of money.

If anyone ever sent an early Prodrive-prepared rally car for scrap, even if it was all bent and rusted, he should be kicking himself now for throwing away tens of thousands of pounds. Admittedly the M3 currently being restored had no serious accident damage but, clapped out and seized up, it was still worth about £50,000.

But, let’s start at the beginning. After winning the 1981 World Rally Championship with Ari Vatanen, David Richards retired from co-driving in order to develop his business career. Part of this was an involvement with Rothmans, particularly in the Middle East, where he spotted many opportunities. He secured a contract with Porsche to run rallying 911s in Rothmans colours and he set up Prodrive for that purpose.

Although the Porsche works team won the Paris-Dakar Rally with a 4wd 911 in January 1984, Porsche had just produced a 2wd evolution 911 for Group B competition. Only 20 of these 911 SC/RS cars were made, aimed primarily at rallying. At the time, 911 road cars had just gone over to a new 3.2-litre engine but the SC/RS was based on the 911 SC normally aspirated 3-litre, uprated to produce 250bhp.

The bodywork, suspension, wheels and brakes came from the production 911 Turbo model but the SC/RS was a proper lightweight competition car. Plastic bumpers, aluminium panels, thin glass and a stripped interior kept the weight down to 1057kg and that meant it could outperform the Turbo road car up to 100mph. It was expensive at Dm188,100, or precisely £47,645.73 in early 1984. The UK price for a normal 911 road car was then just over £21,000.

David Richards reckoned that the new 911 SC/RS stood an excellent chance of success in the major events had seen in the Middle East, where the rough roads were very different from the relatively smooth forests and tarmac they would be tackling in Europe. His team’s first official event was the Qatar Rally of January, 1984, and the new Prodrive Rothmans Porsche scored a resounding victory, driven by local ace Saeed Al Hajri, who went on to win the 1984 Middle East Rally Championship.

The new car had flattered to deceive, however and the next three events – Costa Brava, Kuwait and the Rally of Spain – brought a string of retirements. Even in Europe, something was clearly lacking. David Lapworth, previously with the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus WRC team, was recruited into Prodrive in March 1984 to help run the 911 rally campaign.

Henri Toivonen was the principal driver and Lapworth recalls that the original plan had been for Prodrive to take delivery of the fully prepared cars, simply check the oil and go rallying. In due course, he adds, the aim had been to switch to the 4wd 959 Group B rally car but that project was delayed and Prodrive only ever ran a 959 once, winning the 1985 Pharoahs Rally.

Essentially, they stuck with the SC/RS, which on paper wasn’t quite as quick as the opposition in Europe – unless Toivonen was driving. Lapworth recalls the young Finnish star with huge affection and respect because he was so incredibly quick. With Toivonen at the wheel, says Lapworth, the 911 was even a match for Lancia’s 037 – but only with Toivonen.

When driven really hard, however, says Lapworth, “The car wouldn’t last 10km.” Far from simply running these 911s straight from the box, Prodrive got down to a rapid re-engineering job, mainly to make the chassis much tougher. Developing such capability within Prodrive was what turned the company rapidly into the fully-fledged operation we think of today.

The 911’s bodyshell, especially towards the front, was strengthened and given better protection. Prodrive also developed special dampers, raised the engine output to 298bhp and got the weight down to 960kg. Sometimes a little ballast was needed to meet the regulations.

With these developments, Toivonen won the Costa Smeralda Rally and three further major wins soon followed. In all, Prodrive won 15 rallies with the SC/RS, a perfect example of which was waiting for us to try now. The familiar crackle of the flat-six engine sounded superb but the most striking feature, once settled in, was the wobbly old gearlever with its curiously vague feel. Porsche left all that behind many years ago but it was so characteristic of 911s back then. David Lapworth says that they tried to persuade Porsche to accept the idea of a dog ’box with a better gearchange mechanism but the loyalty in Stuttgart to that traditional Porsche system was an unbreakable article of faith in those days and they wouldn’t hear of it.

The gearchange certainly isn’t ideal but, to be fair, you do learn to live with it. Lapworth can’t resist mentioning that Toivonen had no trouble, adding that his technique was so good that his gearboxes were always perfect inside after an event, unlike those of other drivers.

The track was drying out fast when we set off. On the few remaining damp bits the near-slick tyres had a predictable reluctance to turn into corners but elsewhere grip was excellent and the very light car proved very fast indeed. In fact, you have to push it quite hard to get it to perform in that typical, slightly tail-out 911 style. The steering never felt heavy but, with such low weight and high grip, quick reactions and considerable physical effort were needed to keep it balanced when pressing on hard. The traction was amazing and it was obvious why, in Toivonen’s hands, it was so effective back in 1984.

Here was the perfect essence of a traditional 911 at its very best, with that wonderful engine belting it willingly forward and it was only the unexpectedly high cornering force that made it hard work. Despite the cool weather I soon sensed the sweat soaking into my fireproofs. The effort required would drop, no doubt, as familiarity with the car increased. The brakes, slightly dead at first, soon warmed up and then the feel of the entire car became excellent.

Next in Prodrive’s line of history was the MG Metro 6R4, Austin-Rover’s extreme Group B car that was announced in early 1984. Independently of the works team, Prodrive ran the 6R4 as a private entry in 1986. They won three events in Ireland – Cork and Donegal with Billy Coleman and the Ulster Rally with Jimmy McRae.

The 6R4 retains a fearsome reputation as a monster machine and it bears no relation whatsoever to the Metro saloon on which it was based. It weighs just over 1000kg, has permanent four-wheel drive and its purpose-built, mid-mounted 3-litre V6 engine, loosely based on Cosworth DFV thinking, develops about 400bhp. Former works Austin-Rover driver, Terry Kaby was there to advise, warning me not to be alarmed as we set off. It started instantly on the button, as instructed with no throttle applied.

The 6R4 driving position is superb and the pedals are perfectly set for high performance driving. I felt at home straight away despite a bewildering array of switches and buttons. Setting off was easy but then I understood what Terry had meant. It feels and sounds as if you’re sitting in a violently shaken large tin of nuts and bolts. But, as soon as we got to the track and I put my foot down, it all changed. Suddenly it was smooth and reassuring and I was kept busy changing rapidly up and down the five-speed dog ’box. With low weight, low gearing, 4wd and that engine, the acceleration was fantastic.

The power-assisted steering was surprisingly free of any tugging sensation as I opened the throttle in corners and the little 6R4 felt beautifully poised to dart wherever it was pointed, then stick and go. In a test like this, it seemed incredibly good but driving it on the limit in serious competition must have been rather less easy. Underfunded Austin-Rover never did get it fully sorted, partly because Group B was abolished after Toivonen’s 1986 fatal accident in a Lancia. History suggests that the 6R4 never really got into its stride but I was deeply impressed by the driveability and performance of Prodrive’s example.

Next came the BMW M3 Group A car, an early E30 as prepared by Prodrive for François Chatriot to win the 1990 French Rally Championship, among many great victories. This front-engined, rear-wheel drive car was specifically designed for tarmac rallies and it was right at home on this test track. Any BMW M3 of that era is a revered classic and this device delivered all that promise, plus much more.

Taking to the track this time, the surface was wet, allowing plenty of wheelspin even in third gear but the M3 was still a mighty fine thing to drive. Prodrive’s own close-ratio six-speed gearbox, based on a Getrag, was so quick and easy to use while the extraordinarily smooth delivery of torque and power from the superb engine, giving close to 300bhp, resulted in pure driving pleasure. As for the chassis, this proved to be one of the mostly instantly accessible, confidence-inspiring competition cars I have ever driven. It’s so beautifully balanced that you can just hop in and attack the corners immediately. Even though the throttle pedal was set too high for me and the admittedly effective brakes had a leaden lack of feel, everything else about this M3 was so great that I didn’t want to hand it back.

Prodrive has retained the expertise and many of the spare parts necessary to put their old machines back into perfect condition. Numbers are limited, of course. Of the 20 911 SC/RS cars, Prodrive claims to have prepared about half of them but they built some 40 M3 E30 rally cars, plus a large number of M3s for racing. Genuine 6R4 rally cars are hard to find now but the big market must be the later Subarus, of which Prodrive went on to prepare about 150.

Once you’ve got a car like this, what can you do with it – apart from keeping it as a highly promising investment? With their low gearing, in track days at many circuits they’d be running out of revs in top most of the time. Although Historic racing offers the most socially glittering events, opportunities do exist to exercise such fabulous old rally cars but we definitely need more historic stage rallies of the non-car damaging type. It would be daft to use these machines in anything other than smooth tarmac events now. Such gems are far too valuable to go thrashing them around rough special stages.