RWD BTCC Cavalier?

Been watching the 1990 BTCC season on VHS recently (won it on ebay :))
And in the Oulton Park round a Chris Hodgetts (i think) raced a RWD Cavalier, any info on why they developed this, or what happend to it?
Thanks a lot
Simon
P.S. If this could be moved to a similar thread please do so

The project was dropped quite quickly.

The rules at the time said that if the base model was 4x4 you could opt for either fwd or rwd. The base model was the twin cam 4x4 GSi.

The fwd version was quick and frequently had the measure of the BMW M3 but usually ate its tyres before the end of the race so they tried rwd.

What killed the project was the difficulty in getting the power from the transversely mounted engine to the rear wheels without losing too much power through the transmission.

Ford were supposed to have tried a similar thing with the Mondeo as there was a Mondeo 4x4 somewhere in the range but that, too, got canned pretty quickly. Weight and transmission loss issues.

The original Rouse Mondeos in 1993 were supposed to be rwd, but only ever tested in that form-Rouse presumably thought they could overcome the transmission loss issues that had affected Vauxhall three years earlier..

As Andy97 suggested, the car was off the pace in testing in rwd form, so they were re-engineered to conventional fwd form- it's apparently one of the reasons why they didn't appear until mid-season

Did Vauxhall ever try the Cav in 4wd form as well?

Yes,they tried two,one for Cleland and the other for Bellm,neither driver liked them much and were far quicker using FWD.

Bit of info here - http://www.supertouringregister.com/register/vehicle/53.php

It's briefly mentioned in a Motorsport mag article on the early days of Super-Touring from 3 or 4 years ago, but I don't have it to hand.

Ahhhhh ok then.
Thanks a lot for all your info, my question has been 100% answered!
Cheers Ten-Tenths!
Simon

The original Rouse Mondeos in 1993 were supposed to be rwd, but only ever tested in that form-Rouse presumably thought they could overcome the transmission loss issues that had affected Vauxhall three years earlier..

As Andy97 suggested, the car was off the pace in testing in rwd form, so they were re-engineered to conventional fwd form- it's apparently one of the reasons why they didn't appear until mid-season

Did Vauxhall ever try the Cav in 4wd form as well?

Ford in Germany did try the car as a 4WD machine in the hands of Warren Hughes among others, but it was too heavy. Nissan also raced a Primera 4x4 in the German STW around the same time with limited success.

4wd didn't stop Audi doing well with the A4, until 4wd was banned!

The difference being though was, the A4 had a North/South engine, compared to the other cars having transverse engines. Designed for 4wd instead of converted.

I agree, but it was still heavy & the N-S engine had other disadvantages being ahead of the front wheels. Arguably the 4WD system made the car better balanced & in 2WD form it struggled. In contrast plenty of rally cars have succeeded with transverse engines and 4WD. Maybe Ford & Vauxhall should have persevered with the 4WD development? We'll never know but certainly trying to make a RWD car out of a transverse engined 4WD cars was barking.

Not when you consider how low and far back we mounted them! It was more a case of running out of developement time as there was plenty of FW data available,that was considered the best route plus of course,the road cars were always going to be FWD.