August 20 2008
Racer: Citroen BX 4TC Evolution (Group B)
Update 20/8: Just as we are writing the finishing touches, the auction is pulled. The car must be sold!
Citroen finally entered Group B rallying in 1986 with a developed BX. It was an absolute disaster as the car proved totally uncontrollable on the track. It participated in 15 events (of which 3 FISA WRC rallies: Monte Carlo, Sweden and the Acropolis) before Citroen pulled the plug and Group B rallying got banned altogether after the death of Henri Toivonen in his Lancia Delta S4 in the Tour de Corse rally.
Citroen consequently wanted to destroy all 20 cars made for the rallying. Two went into collections: one into the Citroen collection and one into the Hommel collection. While most cars were sent to the scrapper, two cars got into the hands of amateur driver P. Pivert who managed to reconstruct one of the cars, then crashed it and used a second shell to remake the car. A third shell was allegedly sold in Paris in 1992.
It could be one of these last cars then that has come up for sale. It is the left one in the top picture (the right one is a homologation BX 4TC) and the one just above in action (the car was marked as nr. 17 in the Monte Carlo). Below is a picture of a different car.
So it comes as no surprise really that this car is very rare and very sought after. The description on the French ebay where the car is for sale is a bit weird in the sense that the seller only posted one picture with the intention of tempting buyers to contact him directly. It is a recent trend on ebay that we’re not really big fans of.
