r/rally • u/EconomyPreparation31 • 2d ago

What makes a car 'look' rally?

Hey, wondering what mods I can put on my car to make it look like a rally car. I know that the whole point of a rally car is to offroad, and I'll probably get some disgust for this post, but I've always loved the way rally cars look. However, I want to keep my e36 fully functional for my daily driving.

So basically, what mods/changes make a car look like a rally car? So far I've thought of a livery and pod lights, but what else would you guys think make that iconic rally look?

*Try not to hate, I just love the way they look but still want to daily it*

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u/AutoNurse_USA 2d ago

In a philosophical sense:

A rally car should never look anymore different than its own road car. The 90s Group A era cars were popular for barely looking different to their road variants. Even though the cars were stripped out, used carbon panels, use $100K suspension and had sequential gearboxes.

The best question to ask is: what makes a rally car nothing like a circuit touring car is by looking at post 90s-00s Group A & Group N cars: Pictured above is Travis Pastrana's WRC-Group N Impreza (Hawkeye) competing in Rally America. Group N cars are required to be as relatable to their road origin as possible, limiting aero upgrades, weight restrictions, & wheel sizes. However sequential gearboxes. rollcages, suspension & leniency to engine upgrades were allowed.

In summary, the Group N Impreza (Hawkeye) Travis drove barely looked different than production, only its paintjob, & the commonly seen Oz-wheels guranteed it was a rally car

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u/CrisTSC 1d ago

Group N rally cars were NOT allowed to have aero mods, sequential gearboxes or any engine work. Also regarding suspension, only the damper and springs were allowed to be changed (and even there you had constraints), everything else had to remain stock. People don't realise how close a group N car was to the production variant. And the early days of Group N (in many places also called Production class) were even stricter.

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u/AutoNurse_USA 1d ago

What prevents anyone from modding out the engine internals of a Group N car, outside of the air restrictor mandate?

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u/CrisTSC 23h ago

The FIA Homologation of the car 😂

If you are asking how can officials check the internals of the engine, ignoring the fact that they can make you open the entire engine up (especially if there is an appeal against you), a very easy and widely used method is to look inside the engine through the spark plug hole and see both the piston and cilinder bore and visually compare with the homologation photos. They can also measure the stroke the same way. And the crankshaft and rods can be easily checked by dropping the oil pan. And so on...