Peugeot 205 T16 R-4, 1. 775 cm³, 83.0 * 82.0 mm, 6.5 : 1, dohc, 4V, turbocharger, intercooler, K-Jetronic, 316 kW (430 hp) 7500 rpm, 5-speed, mid-engine rear, four-wheel drive, centre transfer differential, lock f/r, suspension struts/ wishbones f/r, (3.38/2.54/1.68/1.34 m, less than 1. 000 kg, from DM 94,000 (road version), from 1983

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Whether the Peugeot 205 was designed mainly by Pininfarina or by Peugeot itself, in any case the 205 is France's best-selling passenger car for 15 years afterwards and helps the struggling brand a lot. Not much of the design remains anyway when the 205 T16 is introduced in 1983, the same year of 205 production start. Only the headlights, grille, windscreen and front doors are said to have been taken over.

This is, as so often, a product of new FIA rules for Group B rally cars. The Audi quattro, for example, benefited from the old ones. Now, however, Peugeot sees a chance to counter, because for homologation, only 200 additional road versions to be built are prescribed in addition to the basis of a production car.

This is then achieved a year later and Peugeot's participation in the World Rally Championship is thus secured. It's a completely different technical solution to the Audi. You can see the drive unit below, without the engine and drive shafts, of course. In principle, the car is driven to the top left. So the gearbox is behind the driver's seat.

This results in the differential for the front axle on the left and that for the rear axle on the right. As with the quattro, this largely corresponds to the front axle. There is no reversal of the power flow in the drive train from the shafts to the axles. So behind the multi-disk friction clutch comes the centre differential first and only then the gearbox, where, however, the differential is still crossed and the power flow is connected to it when it returns.

Of the transmissions, only the one from the Citroen SM was obviously a match for the enormous torque of the turbo engine, but unlike in the SM, it was mounted transversely. The Ferguson centre differential distributes two- thirds of the torque mainly to the rear axle. The engine block is from the Diesel version, but here with a DOHC head and four valves. The low compression indicates quite a bit of boost pressure.

To get to the engine at all, the entire rear end can be folded up. So there is nothing left of the two-door 205 there. The bodywork is made by Heuliez. It is available in white and yellow, while the road versions are all painted grey. They have less than half the power and the cockpit of the 205 GTI.

After all, the road version also has 147 kW (200 hp) at 6,750 rpm and is about 210 km/h fast. It is found to have very good driving characteristics in tests. The new project is headed by CEO Jean Boillot, who hires Jean Todt as race director and the Finns Salonen/Harjanne and Kankkunen/Piironen as driver and co-driver respectively. 1984 served as a trial year and in 1985/86 the two teams won the world championship and the brand title in exactly the same order.

Above you then see the vehicles, with one of which Ari Vatanen won the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1987. The range was 800 km. After all, there were 13,000 km to cover, over 8,000 of them off-road. And finally, two 205 T16s that obviously went off the road during a race in Argentina, joined together by the 'master of sculpture' César to form a work of art, which can only be justified if no people were injured in the process.