[Booty]

When Group B was banned in the summer of 86, Britain managed to continue with a few of the cars through to the 'last proper' rally of the Year, the Lombard RAC. In 1987 they were ancient history. If you look at the statistics, Audi had struggled to remain competitive throught 85 and 86. The cars were monsters and were very hard to drive against the very light, and extremely fast cars that came 'straight out of the box' like the Peugeot and the Delta. Audi had always tried to keep the quattro looking like a quattro for marketing purposes and were continually trying to update it and uprate it by power increases, lightening and shortening, whereas the Pug and Delta and the Lancia 037 only really bore a passing resemblence to the rodd cars they were based on. So when it all came to an abrupt halt, Audi had nothing to compete with other than the Cq and the 200. The 200 which was a group A car could only have certain 'embellishments' like the Cq could, also being a group A car. James has hinted at what those were on his excellent site. It's hard to say of our beloved Audi's but there time had come, been and gone. They were simply not competitive any more. It's easy to wear rose tinted specs as we all do on this forum but they were overtaken by the likes of the Superb Lancia Delta Intergrale and the Sierra Cosworth. But one things for sure, we'll miss em for ever.