50 years of the WRC: all the winners

Half a century of heroes

The very first World Rally Championship (WRC) season got under way in 1973.

It took over from the short-lived International Championship for Manufacturers and there have been 13 different auto makers that have won the title – some have become synonymous with rallying, while others are now less well known.

There have been many changes to the regulations and the cars competing in the WRC in the past 50 years, but car manufacturers are as determined as ever to prove their mettle in the world’s toughest rally series.

Here are all the winning manufacturers, listed in chronological order of when they first won the World Rally Championship.

Alpine-Renault

Alpine-Renault was no stranger to winning rallies and titles by the time the World Rally Championship was launched in 1973.

Prior to this, the French maker had claimed the International Championship for Manufacturers in 1971, which was the forerunner of the WRC.

The Alpine A110 won the 1971 Rallye Monte-Carlo and repeated this feat in the first year of the WRC, with Alpines also coming home second and third.

Alpine-Renault (cont.)

With talented drivers such as Ove Andersson, Jean-Claude Andruet, Bernard Darniche, Jean-Pierre Nicolas and Jean-Luc Thérier, it’s little wonder Alpine-Renault won this first WRC season with six outright victories from 13 events.

Despite inconsistency on other rallies during the year, Alpine-Renault finished with 147 points, which was 63 points ahead of second-placed Fiat.

However, 1973 proved to be a swansong for the French manufacturer – it could only manage fifth place in 1974, with less than a third of the points of winning make Lancia.

Lancia

In the 50 years since the WRC began, no manufacturer has enjoyed more title wins to date than Lancia.

It has taken 10 manufacturer championships and started in 1974 with its Fulvia HF quickly being superseded by the all-new and purpose-built Stratos.

The mid-engined, Ferrari V6-powered Stratos homologation special showed how seriously Lancia took the championship and the promotional lift it provided.

Lancia (cont.)

Results in the Fulvia and then the Stratos combined to earn Lancia its first WRC crown in 1974, the Stratos going on to claim two more in 1975 and ’76, before there was another for the marque with the Rally 037 in 1983.

However, by far the most successful car for Lancia was the Delta Integrale HF, with six manufacturer titles won in succession between 1987 and 1992.

In this post-Group B era, Lancia showed it had been the quickest to adapt, which allowed Juha Kankkunen, Miki Biasion and Carlos Sainz to share the drivers’ championship spoils.

Fiat

Following Lancia’s winning ways early in the WRC, Fiat got in on the act with its first manufacturers’ title in 1977 to uphold Italian honor.

Its 131 Abarth was a more conventional rally machine than Lancia’s Stratos, but no less effective.

By the end of the season, Fiat had taken five outright rally wins from 11 events, which secured the title with 136 points to Ford’s 132.

Fiat (cont.)

The following year was a more dominant showing by Fiat, taking the title by a 34-point margin over Ford.

However, Fiat’s hat-trick had to wait until 1980, when the marque took five outright wins from 12 rallies for its third manufacturers’ championship.

This winning streak also gave Walter Röhrl the drivers’ title that had only been formally introduced in 1979.

Ford

Given the prominence of Ford and its Escort in rallying throughout the 1970s, it’s perhaps surprising it took until 1979 for the company to achieve its first WRC manufacturer title.

There was some compensation in Björn Waldegård also being crowned the inaugural WRC drivers’ champion, because 1979 was the first year this prize was included as part of the championship.

Ford won the 1979 season with 122 points ahead of new rival Datsun on 108 points.

Ford (cont.)

Ford was not to follow up its manufacturers’ 1979 win again until back-to-back victories with the Focus WRC in 2006 and 2007.

An abortive attempt with the Escort RS 1700 for Group B only went to prove that four-wheel drive rather than two-wheel drive was the future.

There was then another long wait until 2017 when the M-Sport team took the Fiesta WRC to the title.

Talbot

One of the less well known WRC manufacturers’ title winners is Talbot, which scooped rallying’s top prize in 1981 with its Sunbeam Lotus.

Although this wasn’t quite the end of the rear-drive rally car at the highest level – Lancia took the 1983 championship with its Rally 037 – it was the final win for a traditional front-engined, rear-wheel-drive car.

Talbot (cont.)

During the 12 rallies that made up the 1981 season, Talbot was pushed hard by Datsun and finished with 117 points to the Japanese maker’s 106.

This was down to consistency from Talbot’s drivers Guy Fréquelin, Henri Toivonen and Stig Blomqvist scoring well when the Sunbeam Lotus could fight against the competition.

The team took just a single outright rally win during the season, at the Argentine round with Fréquelin driving.

From 1982, it became the Peugeot Talbot Sport team which was busy readying an all-new four-wheel-drive Group B contender in the shape of the 205 T16.

Audi

Audi’s influence on the World Rally Championship cannot be underestimated.

Its perseverance with four-wheel drive shaped how all future top-flight rally cars would be made – and its work paid off in 1982 with the manufacturers’ title.

It wasn’t the dominant performance Audi might have hoped for, though, because it finished the season on 116 points to Opel’s 104, and Opel’s Röhrl claimed the drivers’ championship to deny Audi a clean sweep.

Audi (cont.)

Lancia won the 1983 championship, which was the last for a two-wheel-drive car, but Audi was back on top in 1984 to take the double of manufacturer and driver titles.

For that year, Audi assembled a dream-team driver line-up that included defending world champion Hannu Mikkola, Blomqvist, Michèle Mouton and Röhrl. In the end, it was Blomqvist who claimed top honors.

Peugeot

The Group B era of the World Rally Championship was its most intense in the mid-1980s – and Peugeot proved to be the best of the manufacturers with its 205 Turbo 16.

The compact, mid-engined machine used four-wheel drive to great effect to win seven of the 12 rallies in the 1985 season en route to the manufacturers’ crown.

This was more than enough to also give Timo Salonen the drivers’ championship.

Peugeot (cont.)

More was to come for Peugeot in 1986 when the Group B machines reached their outrageous best.

Using the 205 T16 E, Peugeot fended off a strong challenge from Lancia and its Delta S4 to win the manufacturers’ title by 137 points to 122.

This year was also another double for Peugeot, because Juha Kankkunen took the drivers’ championship over Markku Alén.

There then followed a hiatus of manufacturer title wins for Peugeot, until the 206 WRC won a hat-trick between 2000 and 2002, with Marcus Grönholm lifting matching drivers’ trophies for the Peugeot team in 2000 and 2002.

Toyota

Datsun and then Nissan had been flying the flag for Japanese firms in the WRC for years, but it was Toyota that finally took manufacturer honors with its first win in 1993.

Toyota had already enjoyed success when Carlos Sainz claimed the drivers’ championship in 1990 and 1992 in the Celica, but it was an especially sweet moment to take the 1993 title for both manufacturer and driver with Juha Kankkunen.

This was followed with another double title win in 1994, with Didier Auriol driving.

Toyota (cont.)

Toyota was notoriously banned from rallying for the 1995 season, because of its infamous and ingenious turbo-restrictor modification, but came back to secure the manufacturers’ championship in 1999 with its Corolla WRC.

This was followed by three further title wins for the company in 2018 and 2021 with the Yaris WRC, and then in 2022 with the GR Yaris Rally1.

Subaru

Few companies have made more capital out of winning rallies and championships than Subaru.

It helped to have such charismatic drivers as Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Carlos Sainz in the car during a purple patch that netted the firm three manufacturer titles in a row between 1995 and 1997.

It made Subaru a household name and the Impreza was the car every keen driver wanted.

Subaru’s 1995 title was assured by the last couple of rounds, but that didn’t stop Sainz and McRae battling for the drivers’ title right down to the final event at Rally GB.

Subaru (cont.)

Although Subaru enjoyed winning the manufacturers’ title in 1996 and ’97, it didn’t repeat the drivers’ wins in those years, or any subsequent ones to date.

The combination of Mitsubishi and Tommi Mäkinen saw to that, yet Subaru was established as one of the biggest names in WRC history by the end of the 1990s, so it was job done from the manufacturers’ point of view.

Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi’s sole manufacturers’ championship win in the WRC seems like slim pickings for a company that was at the forefront of the sport from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.

At the time, it seemed the only question on most rallies was whether Mitsubishi or Subaru would come out on top, and it was often the former with Mäkinen at the wheel.

Mitsubishi (cont.)

Finnish ace Mäkinen took four drivers’ titles on the bounce between 1996 and 1999 with the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo in its ever-developing forms.

Yet 1998 was the only year Mitsubishi won the manufacturers’ championship with a dominant seven outright wins in a season consisting of 13 rallies.

Despite retiring from six of the other rallies in this season, it was still enough to secure Mäkinen the title by two points over Sainz.

Citroën

Citroën kicked off an impressive tally of eight WRC manufacturers’ titles in 2003 with its Xsara WRC.

Prior to this season, Citroën had been regarded primarily as a threat only on Tarmac events, but the arrival of Colin McRae alongside existing talent Sébastien Loeb proved a shrewd combination.

As Loeb became ever-more able on gravel as well as Tarmac, McRae scored plenty of points with consistent driving.

Citroën (cont.)

The Xsara WRC took Citroën to three consecutive manufacturer titles between 2003 and 2005, and then the C4 WRC repeated this feat from 2008 to 2010.

After that, the DS3 WRC took over the manufacturer-championship winning ways for 2011 and 2012. Such dominance was only interrupted by Ford’s titles in 2006 and ’07.

Despite that, Citroën also won the drivers’ championship a sensational nine times in a row with Loeb from 2004-2012.

Volkswagen

Volkswagen was not a familiar name in the WRC, though it had competed in the 1970s and ’80s with various Golfs in the lower classes.

Then, it came from seemingly nowhere to win four manufacturer and driver titles in succession between 2013 and 2016.

A number of factors played into VW’s hands to pull off this feat, including having the undoubted talent of Sébastien Ogier driving the Polo R WRC, with Jari-Matti Latvala in the second car to help pile on the points in the constructors’ table.

Volkswagen (cont.)

Another factor that helped Volkswagen apparently come from nowhere to championship-winning form was a change in the WRC rules for 2011, where the cars were based on Super 2000 machines but with turbocharged, 1.6-liter engines.

Volkswagen Motorsport had plenty of experience with these cars from the Škoda Fabia S2000, so developing the Polo R WRC was more simple than starting from scratch.

The team also had input from former WRC champion Carlos Sainz, so the Polo was off to a flyer when it made its debut in 2013.

Hyundai

Hyundai made its debut in the World Rally Championship with its Accent WRC in 2000.

Even with drivers such as Kenneth Eriksson, the aforementioned Kankkunen, Freddy Loix, Alister McRae and Armin Schwarz, the team had little to show for its efforts and withdrew from the sport in 2006.

However, Hyundai was back in the WRC in 2014 with renewed purpose, starring Thierry Neuville as lead driver in the i20 WRC.

Hyundai (cont.)

In 2017, Hyundai replaced its car with the new i20 Coupe WRC and greater success began to flow.

With more development under its tires, the car became a regular front-runner and Neuville finished the 2018 season in second place in the drivers' championship.

He was second again in 2019, but Hyundai scored its first manufacturer title with four outright rally wins.

Now on a roll, the South Korean firm repeated this success in 2020, when Ott Tänak finished third and Neuville was fourth in the drivers’ rankings.