Peugeot is in line to present a new WRCar before the end of this year and it is going to be sensational! This will be an exciting 12 month, Citroen competes a first full season with the Xsara T4, Subaru has debuted a new shaped Impreza WRC with the start of the 2004 season, Ford brought out a radically revamped Focus RS WRC for Rally NZ, Skoda has meanwhile shown their new Fabia WRC, that should be a massive improvement over their bulky Octavia WRC. A Peugeot 307 WRC has long been rumoured and it appears it should now have its competitive debut in Monte Carlo 2004. Incredibly it will be the first rally car created under the current WRCar rules that is a Coupé!
More extraordinary even, while many people including the media seemed to believe the new Peugeot 307 WRC will be based on the normal 3-door hatchback, it actually will be based on a cabrio, although with a hard top: the 307 CC!
Sexy bottom - this is what the opposition will see in 2004!
I am not quite sure how Peugeot will resolve that the car is actually based on a cabriolet. Will they weld the roof? Fact however is, as the FIA appears to have confirmed to the team as well, that under current WRCar regulations there is nothing to bar teams from basing their WRCar on a cabriolet, as long as the base version is a 4-seater, minimum 4m in length, part of a 25,000 units within 12 month mass production model family and the base version itself being produced in at least 2,500 units within 12 month. The first three restrictions perfectly apply to the 307 CC and the last one, that it has to be made in 2,500 units in 12 month, shouldn’t be a problem either: alone my local Peugeot dealer has already taken 5 orders 5 month before the car is on sale and even before the customers have actually seen it!
That the new Peugeot WRCar is based on the 307 CC model makes perfect sense. This as well explains why the car was so long rumoured without a sign of it.
1) Marketing considerations turned out to be a real headache and you can bet that Corrado Provera (Peugeot’s Director of Communications for his day job) and Christian Peugeot (the firm’s Director of Marketing) have spent many long nights discussing this issue.
- One major fear was that stopping to use the 206 for the WRC program could lead to customers thinking the 206 is nearing the end of its production life, a signal that was to be avoided under any circumstances.
- It is since ever tradition for Peugeot to present a new rally car in line with the sales start for a new road car.
This means, while the 206 is to be replaced by the 207 not before the year 2006 or late 2005 at the very earliest, the 207 was simply too late for a convenient new WRCar time frame. But at the same time the normal 307 was too early. However sales for the 307 CC start in October 2003 and this fits the time frame well.
2) The 307 hatchback is designed to be a modern, super functional family car. It has a good size for a rally car, but for its functional interior it is quite high. To get a low centre of gravity is not impossible with the 307 hatchback, but it is clearly an easier task to achieve with the CC version.
Talking of centre of gravity, the Peugeot engineers believe that the 307 will have advantages over the 206 due to its length. I.e. packaging was a real nightmare when designing the 206 WRC. This should be much easier with the 307. But as well the long wheelbase is regarded as a main advantage over the 206. Although extraordinary traction helped to hide the fact a little, it is still clear that the weakest area of the 206 was rough and fast surfaces, where the car appears a little nervous and fragile. While the 307 is only about 20cm or 8 inches longer than the 206, it’s wheel base is a major step forward. In fact the wheelbase of the 307 already in road trim is longer than the wheelbases of Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Lancer and Skoda Octavia!
While there are no technical specs of the 307 WRC released yet, in fact not even fully identified yet, the new Peugeot WRCar is likely to have a sensational and revolutionary new transmission. It was an idea of the Peugeot engineers and Peugeot Sport has invited British motorsport transmission specialists Hewland to help with their expertise to turn the transmission into reality.
Well, all in all a car to look forward to. So stay tuned for more info as we get it, which however may still be a while. The first car is existing and a first roll out and function test will be within the next two weeks. But that is all it is, just a function test. Proper tests like comparing its performance to Peugeot’s current WRCar will not be until much later in the year. It will be first shown to the public in autum this year, possibly Frankfurt Motorshow in September or Paris Motorshow in October. The competition debut for the 307 WRC was originally scheduled to be in May or June 2004, with Peugeot starting the season with the 206 WRC. But changes to the body shell weight and roll cage design regulations mean the 206 would need a new homologation at the start of 2004. With no more than one homologation permitted for each manufacturer within a calendar year, this would have compromised the 307 WRC launch and therefore the competitive debut has been moved forward. The idea is for 2004 for the works team to use the 307 WRC while the 206 WRC will still be present with customer teams such as Bozian and Kronos.
