Here’s one for you, Craig Breen. Tell me the second most popular car to be used on the 1991 1000 Lakes Rally. Andrea Adamo, you should feel free to dive in with a suggestion as well.
In case you were wondering, it wasn’t the Fiat Ritmo. There was only one of them.
And it wasn’t the Ford Escort RS2000. A decade earlier, the Escort had smashed the entry list with 24 examples of the RS2000 – that’s 15 more than any other car taking the start in Jyväskylä. For the record, the Talbot Sunbeam, Lotus and Chrysler Avenger were second most common car in 1981.
Keep thinking on the 1991 question, I’ll come back to it.
Why am I apparently fixated about two 1000 Lakes Rallies split by 10 years?
Easy, our amazing partner website eWRC-results.com has just completed the compilation of data on Finland’s 1981 and 1991 rounds of the world championship. You can find all the details on an Ari Vatanen success that took him to within six points of Guy Fréquelin’s championship lead here.
Want to know more about Juha Kankkunen’s maiden home WRC win? Look here.
This one comes with a warning though, make sure you look when you’ve got a couple of hours to spare. As usual, eWRC will pull you in and make you forget about everything else going on in the world around you.
But step inside and you’ll go on a journey which reveals the Nissan Sunny GTI-R David Llewellin used to finish 10th on the 1000 Lakes in 1991 was driven to victory on Slovakia’s International Rallye Tatry by Jozef Béreš three years later. You might remember J2 NME.
Even more interesting, the Kleber-tired Audi Quattro Hannu Mikkola drove to third in ’81 (he would have won had it not been for the 4m20 seconds incurred while Audi changed the car’s camshaft after a cam follower was damaged) was the same chassis Michèle Mouton drove to victory in Sanremo next time out. Hello again IN-NL 88.
Enough now. Get in there and have a look for yourselves. The top of the ‘80s and ‘90s were both special times for our sport and these were very special events.
The answer? Mitsubishi’s Galant VR-4. There were 12 of them. The most popular car in 1991? Find out for yourself. It was a classic.
