As I recap the 2009 WRC season, I thought I'd share a little WRC GTi-R history. Recounted from a Canada GTi-R post:

To be blunt, the Nissan Pulsar GTI-R's record in the world rally Championship was something of a failure. The GpA cars, run by Nissan Motorsports Europe, based at Milton Keynes , made their World Championship debut on the 1991 Safari Rally driven by former World Champion, Stig Blomqvist and British Champion David Llewellin .

The cars were never able to match the pace of the potent Lancia Delta Integrale or the Toyota Celica GT-Four and although Blomqvist struggled to finish fifth, his team-mate retired early following an accident. As the season progressed three main weaknesses were identified. The first was the Dunlop tyres were no match for the Pirelle or Michelin rubber. The second major flaw was that the Nissan suffered a weight penalty compared to its lighter rivals. Thirdly, the engine overheated and simply wasn't powerful enough.

Best results of the year in the series were a ninth for Llewellin in Acropolis and an 8 th and 10 th for the team in Finland 's 1000 Lakes. NME then entered a car for Llewellin in the final round of the British Rally Championship round as a shakedown for the Lombard RAC. The Welshman won and the team had high hopes for the final event of the year, the RAC World Championship round. Although both drivers won a stage each, neither reached the finish, the Swede sidelined with suspension problems and the Welshman took an early bath with electrical failure.

Rather than a re-design for the following season to combat major design faults, such as the position of the intercooler which tended to fry head gaskets, NME announced an even more restricted programme for 1992. The team had actually run the majority of daylight stages throughout the 91 season with lamp pods still attached, despite the weight disadvantage, in an effort to improve the engine cooling!. This rather drastic effort didn't really cure the problem of the intercooler on top of the hot engine. What it really needed was to be re-located down towards the bumper as in the Mitsubishi Evos .

Llewellin was dropped from the 92 driver line-up and replaced by Tommi Makinen and Francois Chatriot with Blomqvist making an occasional guest appearance. The Pulsar's best ever finish in the WRC was in the 1992 Swedish Rally where Blomqvist made full use of his local knowledge to finish third, setting five fastest stage times in the process. Interestingly the team ran the event with Michelin tyres despite being under contract with Dunlop and with the cars covered in their logos !.

There was another reason to celebrate because Gregoire De Mevius won the 1992 GpN World Championship (for production cars) driving a GTI-R prepared by Nissan Belgium . At the end of the year the entire GpA GTI-R project was abandoned and NME turned their attention to the 2WD sunny GTI.

JDM 4WD shootout featuring the GTi-R. Man can it launch!!!