"It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Audi completely revolutionised the way rally sport is played today. Prior to the 1980s, rally cars were either front or rear-wheel drives. But a rule change request from Audi asking if "
The British rally driver, born in Hillingdon in 1946, always encapsulated a specific sort of blue collar derring-do – one that was very English and very of the period. Though he lacked the family resources to pursue an expensive sport, he worked in the motor trade and managed to claw his way into the British Leyland Factory team when they offered him his first top-line drive for 1976.
Tony was already 30 at this point, and as the rally world ramped up toward the Group B era, he was instantly popular with the fervent UK rally crowds, who loved him not only for the everyman heroes he drove, like the Triumph TR8 (pictured). The punters loved Tony as much for his personality as much as the car. Few rocked the trademark ‘Rally Jacket’ and moustache like our Tony.
Though he never reached the high peaks of the rally profession, with that roguish charm, a deadpan sort of humour, and lip-fuzz, he recalled, according to the obituary in The Guardian that run after his death in 2002, “some pioneering aviator…”
When Group B hit, Tony was at the helm of the Metro 6R4 monsters that were the mainstay of the BL team. Pond’s finest hour, in fact, came at the helm of the Metro, when he narrowly missed a victory in the 1985 RAC rally, losing out only to the madly superior Lancias of Henro Toivonen and Markku Allen.
But racing Rally cars wasn’t Pond’s only role for the Leyland corporation. He raced saloon cars successfully and played a central role in developing the MGF sports car. One of his major claims to fame was the amazing feat of averaging 100mph in a Rover 800 Vitesse hatchback on the Isle of Man TT course.
It would be nice to see a brawny bloke with a handlebar moustache from the South East of England make it on the international rally world one more time.
"Group B rally inspired an entire generation to max the horsepower from their accessible little runabout.
And of all the mentalist classics that received the Group B makeover in the early-mid eighties, none was as unlikely or appealing than the "
"There's nothing we like better than odd, rare racing cars and homologation specials. And the rally version of the Citroen SM is particularly odd, rare and special.
Conceived as a flagship for the performance potential of the Citroen/Maserati collaboration, "
"For our money Blue Collar is one of the greatest films about the realities of the car manufacturing industry
The gritty 1978 movie, starring a straight-talking Richard Pryor and a brawny Harvey Keitel, was shot in the Ford River Rouge works "
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One of the unexpected consequences of the frightening flux within the British car industry of the 1980s was the emergence of serious motorsports divisions within the corporate structures of car makers.
And the Metro 6R4 was perhaps the nuttiest, most "
"The game-changing Audi quattro made its UK debut in London in 1980. We caught up with former members of the Audi UK Rally Team recall how it changed the world.
Harald Demuth – Rally driver
Two-time German Rally Champion Harald Demuth helped "
"It almost goes without saying that we’re spoilt for choice here. The nineties was, after all, the decade that gave British motorists more options than ever before. Not only were European models - such as the E36 BMW, Audi "
"Bolt London is a colourful, textured Aladdin's cave of all things bike and all things good. We spent some time with a paragon of London’s creative bike scene.
Bolt London is nestled in an atmospheric stable yard just off "
"Cosworth recently teamed up with Gordon Murray Automotive to develop a naturally aspirated, 3.9-litre V12 engine to power the GMA T.50 supercar, which will be the first ever GMA vehicle ever to go into production.
In case you didn’t "
"The motorsport community has always been a core foundation for enthusiasts, participants and spectators alike. It’s a shared passion that brings people together, ignites fierce competition and sparks lifelong friendships. But for some people it runs even deeper than "