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The Peugeot 106 as a competition car was fully Peugeot Sport engineered, but it was mainly aimed at amateur and privateer drivers. The plan was there from the beginning, but it took off slowly. The problem was that at first there was no clear sporty model in the road car range. Well, there was, but in the form of the 106 XSI. This 106 XSI had the 1.4 engine, which Citroen kept using in their Visa and AX models, but until now Peugeot made a point to avoid that engine for motorsport, especially since with 1360cc it would fit in an unfortunate way into the then 1301-1600cc class. The step was taken nevertheless and the car got to some minor fame as a works car in the hands of Christian Bruzi and Gilles Panizzi in France.
May the early groupA 106 have been unfortunate in its cc class, it showed very soon that Peugeot had created another giant killer. Gilles Panizzi gave his WRC works driver debut in a 106 XSI 1.4 on the 1993 Tour de Corse. Gilles crashed early, but his team mate Christian Bruzi came 13th overall. Better even, in the Italian WRC round that year, San Remo 93, Angelo Medeghini even made it into the top10 overall! A 1360cc FWD car for overall results!
Some years later the 205 was nearing the end of its production live and with it went the hugely famous and successful homologation special, the 205 Rallye 1.3 - a car designed to be light, cheap and in a way to take the mick of the FIA and the group A era. Confusingly meanwhile we also had the 106 as an XSI 1.6, but this being an 8 valve engine, it wouldn't really have been much more interesting for competition than the XSI 1.4. Further confusion was created, when the FIA - exactly because of the unbeatable 205 Rallye 1.3 - moved the smallest cc category up to 1400cc. Now the XSI 1.4 all of the sudden was a suitable car for class wins, although this move did not stop the 205 Rallye 1.3 to be competitive. After all this confusion Peugeot decided to revive the 205 Rallye 1.3 idea and created a 106 Rallye 1.3 on the very same lines. This 106 Rallye 1.3 repeated the Panizzi/Bruzi 106 XSI 1.4 success story as a works car with Fabien Doenlen in France and David Higgins in the UK.
In 1996 the competition story of the 106 received a massive boost when there was a major face lift to the 106 model series. At least one face lift half way through a comparatively long production life of a model is quite typical for Peugeot, but the 106 face lift was unusual for Peugeot standards as even the size of the car was affected. The "new" 106 grew by no less than 100mm and such moved much closer in size to the 2-series Peugeots (being i.e. just 28mm shorter than the good old 205). And it was only this 2nd edition 106 that became a real big story in rallying.
To add to all the confusion we already had, there was a Rallye version of the "new" 106 as well, but this moved away from the original concept of the "Rallye" series: It had a 1.6 engine! It also had a mono point injection system rather than carburettors, but it stayed with the idea of stripping the car of all unnecessary luxury to make it super light. However it still had an 8 valve engine at a time when the 1.6 16v 106 S16 wasn't too far from becoming reaility, so the Rallye 1.6 never became too big a story and never had any noticeably results in group A form.
Then the 106 S16 in group A showed nicely what the 106 in competition was all about. The group A version we note with 140BHP. This is not a misprint, Peugeot did that on purpose. We all know that by the late 1990s it already was no problem to get a group A 1600cc 16v to 200BHP. But the whole point of the entire range was to be an amateur friendly car. The most common 106 S16 group A had power lifted from 118BHP standard to only 140BHP. This did not cost much more than group N preparation and the car had reliability. This version was often referred to as "Challenge Spec", as it had all carpets, parcel shelves, etc kicked out to minimise weight. The engine was close to standard and the gearbox was borrowed from the 306 S16, which is a 6-speed standard. So we have a very light car with budget standard components, but then stretch to proper group A brakes and a limited slip diff = fun, fun, fun! And that turned the 106 S16 into the next toy as a base car for the Peugeot Cup in UK and France. The Peugeot Cup is the most famous one-makes-series, creating stars as Richard Burns, Francois Delecour & Gilles Panizzi. Disoveries from the 106 Cup include Mark Fisher, Cedric Robert, Alex Bengué & Daniel Sola.
For the big or rich guys (and gals!), there also was a 106 Maxi created, but this being under F2 kit car rules has its own chapter.
|
Model & Evo. (Activity) |
BHP@ RPM |
Torque (Nm)@ RPM |
Length Width Height |
Weight (Kg/BPM Ratio) |
Trans. (W'base) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 106 Rallye 1.3 (93-94) |
130/7500 | 140/4000 | 3578.1588.1367 | 785 (6) | FWD (2360) |
|
106 S16 (99-22) |
140/7500 | 168/5700 | 3678.1588.1376 | 900 (6.4) | FWD (2360) |
|
106 XSI 1.4 (93-94) |
135/6000 | 155/5500 | 3578.1588.1367 | 825 (6.1) | FWD (2360) |
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