Wish to throw values to the wind in pursuit of bona fide Group B performance for the road? That’s on the table too.
The darling of Tolman’s affection, the 205 T16, produced around 200bhp in road-going spec for 0-62mph in 6.0sec figures half as impressive as those for the Peugeot Talbot Sport car that scooped consecutive WRC titles.
“They’re all turbocharged and they were all built for it,” affirms Tolman. “You can pretty much do anything you would like. Once you start putting five or six-hundred horsepower into them, they’re ridiculously quick cars. And with no driver aids. Start pushing big numbers through them and they are terrifying.”
As values soar, it’s surely no surprise that Group B specials of any output are typically squirrelled away for winter. “Most people are quite scared of road salt and wet weather, which is ironic when you think about what rally cars are designed to do,” smiles Tolman.
Keen to tap up his services? Allow up to 12 months for a full restoration and a budget potentially into six figures.
“If you want to keep it original,” he explains, “you’re talking about stripping the car down completely to make everything work safely and putting it back together without changing anything.
“It’s a bit like art: the person who created the painting did it for next to nothing. Hundreds of years later it’s worth millions of pounds. So how long does the person repairing it spend, and at what cost?”
