Germany’s ADAC Eifel Rallye Festival will see more than 160 rally cars perform full-bore demonstration runs on 23-25 July under the event’s ‘To the ’60s and Back’ theme. The headline attraction for many will be the sight of every major Group B machine being driven together at speed on the Vulkaneifel demonstration stages for the first time.
Organisers have confirmed that 16 Group B cars – several of which are normally housed in museums – will run together. The line-up includes the Nissan 240RS, Opel Manta 400, Porsche 911 SC RS, Lancia 037 and Delta S4, three specifications of Audi Quattro, two Peugeot 205 variants and the Citroën BX4TC. A further 20 Group B challengers will also take to the stages.
‘This experience is truly unique,’ said Reinhard Klein, head of gathering organiser Slow Sideways. ‘I’m not sure if we will ever manage to get all these cars driving in one place again.’
The Festival will also celebrate the 80th birthday of Swedish World Rally Champion Stig Blomqvist. A Rallye Festival regular, Blomqvist will lead a parade of cars from his six-decade career alongside co-driver Lothar Bökamp.
The pair will head the parade in the RSCC Distomo – a modern prototype inspired by the abandoned Group S concept and the Ford RS200 – ahead of three Saabs, including a 1962 Sport Monte Carlo that recalls the car Blomqvist drove in the 1965 Swedish Championship.
WRC champion co-drivers Nicky Grist and Seppo Harjanne will also be in attendance, alongside German title-holders Kalle Grundel, Harald Demuth, Georg Berlandy and Ruben Zeltner.
Some of the weekend’s most thrilling action comes courtesy of the ‘Quertreiber’ (‘troublemakers’ in English). Freed from the strict regulations governing the main field, these cars will perform full-commitment, sideways runs that aren’t always possible in some of the irreplaceable historic machinery.
Leading the Quertreiber pack is Niki Schelle’s Suzuki Ignis S1600 – nicknamed ‘Schreihals’, or ‘loudmouth’ – along with various BMWs, a Toyota Starlet, a GR Yaris Rally2 and Reini Sampl’s Audi Quattro.
Six-time Nürburgring 24 Hours podium finisher Lance David Arnold will make his Rallye Festival debut in the Quertreiber field. ‘I was absolutely blown away when I saw the line-up of cars and experienced the atmosphere in the service park,’ Arnold said of attending last year’s event. ‘From that moment on, I knew I had to compete here.’
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