Best Rally Cars for Beginners

You can watch online videos depicting small brightly colored sedans barreling through the woods over gravel, inches away from unprotected masses of spectators. This is called rally racing.

Like most if not all forms of motorsport, there is a series through which drivers compete in speed contests to collect points and claim a trophy, and in the world of rallying it’s called the World Rally Championship (WRC).

Cars that compete in other sports like Indycar are called spec-series cars, where every car that competes is identical to one another, and Formula 1 is sometimes referred to as a prototype series, because all of the cars are designed independently and for each specific event.

While this makes for some interesting racing, unfortunately you most-likely will never get the chance to drive one of these cars, much less own one, but that’s where WRC is set apart as a homologation series.

Rules of the WRC dictate that manufacturers build the racing cars with the idea of homologation looming over their shoulders, which means that any car they produce to compete in the WRC must have a road-going, production version. It’s a brilliant system, because if you see a car you really like competing in the WRC chances are you can own one.

Of course, it won’t be exactly the same because racing cars don’t adhere to restrictions like emissions control and street-legal tires. Regardless, these are some of the best cars you can buy that were created for the sole purpose of competing in the WRC:

• 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi
• 2003-2007 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution (Evo VIII, Evo IX)
• 2017 Ford Focus RS
• 1993 Toyota Celica All-Trac Turbo
• 1987-1992 Mitsubishi Galant VR-4

2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi

While Subaru did in fact withdraw from the WRC in 2008 due to the economic downturn that impacted the auto industry, that doesn’t make its cars any less racing or road worthy.

The 2004 Impreza WRX STi came with a turbocharged 2.0-liter horizontal-four cylinder engine, that produced around 260 horsepower and near that much torque. It was also the last Subaru to win the WRC world championship for drivers in 2003.

2003-2007 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution (Evo VIII, Evo IX)

There are different schools of thought when it comes to the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, in terms of its heritage and what it should be. Originating in Japan in the early 1990s, the Evo competed in rally racing with a new iteration every few years.

Finally when it hit the eighth generation the Evo found its way to North America. Evos got better with each passing generation, and surprisingly they all used the same engine, a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-four, dubbed the 4G63T.

The most recent generation, the Evo X, was different though, so it didn’t quite fit in line with older Evos. Lancer Evolutions are quick with robust engines that can take a lot of boost thanks to their iron cylinder block and low compression, and while its six-speed transmission is seemingly made out of glass (it breaks on a whim), the five-speed is nearly bulletproof.