Honneur et Rallye

The Peugeot 106, 205 and 306 Rallyes reduced weight and cost to massively increase driving fun for a growing niche of hot-hatch enthusiasts

- AARON MCKAY

In the heady days of flying gravel and bursts of water framing your everyday hatchback as something only a few steps away from popping champagne corks at the end of a special stage, there were those who were eager to get even closer to the action than the usual GTIS could land them. With the 1988 205 Rallye, Peugeot made that a lot easier than might have been expected, both on and off the road. Soon surpassing the 5000 cars needed for homologation, it inspired two successors the 106 and 306 Rallyes and perhaps even sketched the outlines of later, more hardcore offshoots of mainstream hot hatches.

This was a time before the Subaru Impreza WRX democratised the turbocharged, fourwheel-drive pinnacle of the World Rally Championship. Unless you were lucky enough to have a spare £40k to spend on a Peugeot 205 T16 in 1984, you had to look further down the classes. Thus the 1294cc 205 Rallye, even cheaper than a GTI, was an immediate hit with more budget-conscious enthusiasts on and off the stages. Privateers scooped them up for competition in the sub-1300cc classes of Group A and N rallying, while its cunning Ffr69,800 (around £9300) price point, some Ffr16,000 less than a 1.6 GTI, appealed to thousands of roadgoing buyers.

The immediate popularity of this new model was proof that the motorsport campaign of the newly formed Peugeot Talbot Sport had been a great success. In the wake of the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, Talbot Samba Rallye and Group B monster 205 T16, as well as Paris-Dakar Rally and Pikes Peak International Hill Climb wins, the 205 Rallye was a hot product of the marketing and engineering achievements that PTS had earned by 1988. Finished in white, with plastic wheel-arch extensions and Peugeot Talbot Sport red/yellow/blue stripes front and rear, it had the authentic look of a rally car ready to be plastered in sponsorship stickers.