REPRINT FROM #21 1979
MOTOR SPORTS: IS MARA BEING DISHONEST?
INVESTIGATING THE IRENA GTR79
This picture got kind of famous after the 1979 International gran turismo rally. The question is now - did Mara run into the ditch with their advertising, too?
The Mara Irena. A kind of nice compact car for a competitive price, but nothing that automobile enthusiasts are running their legs off to be able to buy. It has been so for the more than 10 years it has been in production, which also means that it is feeling slightly dated at the moment. So, a bread and butter car, and absolutely nothing about it will spawn excitement, right?
That was true a year ago. Then, BOOM!, something very interesting happened. Many people laughed at Mara for their entry in the 1979 International gran turismo rally. The humble Irena sedan all of a sudden had a sporty 2 door fastback body, and due to homologation rules we all were guessing that something interesting was lurking in the shadows. But other than that it looked like nothing special at all. It was even said to have a bored up version of the standard Irena engine and nobody believed in their chances at all.
And then….
The laughter was stuck in the throat of everyone after stage 1. Mara in first position. Among more exotic cars, an economy car from Archana was taking the lead. Looking like nothing special at all. Sure, their success varied very much, but nobody had expected the Archanan budget car to finish in third, which they have advertised very much.
And now it is here, the Mara Irena GTR79. The “road legal” rally car version. Or is it? Well, of course it is road legal but looking at it, we started to have our doubts…
First of all, it should be said that there are no bad feelings about the GTR79 in itself. Reasonably quick, yes, but not really rally winner quick? It is fun to drive, great value for the money. It still runs four wheel drum brakes (!). Stopping distances are still reasonable even if they have the classic drum brake fading problem - but is that really equipment for a rally winner? Otherwise it is a typical Mara as they always have been. Simple, robust, practical. But that’s part of the problem. It is very much a normal Mara, while Mara is advertising it as a road going version of their famous rally car. And to us, it feels kind of doubtful that the standard Irena could be a rally winner.
But who are we to answer? Instead, we did something interesting, as a real investigation and service to you as a reader.
We went out incognito and bought a brand new Mara Irena GTR79. No spiced up press car, but the exact same car that you can buy as a private customer. Then we took it for disassembly by the real group of experts.
To Gotland and the engineers at RAUK.
This was a nervous moment to be a Mara Irena indeed.
Now, it may sound kind of biased to let one car company say things about a competitors car. But keep in mind that RAUK is a low volume sports car manufacturer, and about the opposite to Mara on the market. Keep in mind that they are by no means unwilling to co-operate with the large car companies (for example, you probably remember the RAUK-Olsson 97, a spiced up version of the Olsson 67 that was a hot hatch before the term was invented). Also, RAUK said that they had no ambitions at all to enter the 1979 International gran turismo rally. “Rally is not the kind of motorsport that we are going to compete in”, says Gunnar Hedqvist, engineer at RAUK.
“But you are capable of building a rally car?”
“Yes, absolutely. There is no magic behind that.”
So, the engineers at RAUK tore the Mara down and studied it in detail. And how about their verdict, is it a rally winner or is it just a regular Mara with war paint?
“To start with, this is absolutely not a bad car”, says Hedqvist. “It is pretty sane engineering for what it is, in our opinion it is a sporty compact coupé for the budget conscious buyer”.
“But nothing more?”
“In this version, absolutely nothing more. This car requires hefty modifications to be competitive in rallying.”
“More than you can achieve without altering the base car too much?”
Here, we saw that Hedqvist got uncomfortable. Probably he wanted to say something more salty, but preferred to stay humble.
“Well. Let’s just say that we would not build on this base. The engine could probably be upgraded from the base block, but would need heavy internal modifications. The rest of the car…well. If RAUK were to build on this base, we could have kept the basic body shell but built a completely new car underneath.”
“Are you saying that Mara in one way or another has cheated with their rally entry?”
“Absolutely not. Just because we can’t see how to do it at RAUK, does not mean that other manufacturers can’t achieve it. Also, we haven’t seen the rally entry up close, which not many people have done due to Mara being very restrictive in many ways. We would definitely not sink as low as accusing them for cheating.”
“But is it by any means possible to see this as a street legal version of the rally car?”
“Only by a far stretch maybe. As we said, in this form, this car is extremely far from being a rally winner, and you can’t make it one in a garage with a spanner and a hammer. Maybe they have found ways through the homologation regulations, but let’s just say that we would not advertise it as such if it was RAUK that sold the vehicle”.
It can be driven hard, but is it really a street legal rally car?
So long the input from RAUK, but we contacted the Mara importer in Sweden to get their view of what we have found out during our investigation.
"First, thank you for the opportunity to comment on your article.
You may not be aware, but the Irena’s coupe version has already been available in the home country for a couple of years, so it is well-established on that market. However, we only have introduced it here earlier this year due to the success in the GT79 rally.
For the Irena coupe, there has been a widely available lower-end trim (the SX 2.0) and an upper-end trim (the GTC 2.5) with more limited availability. The rally entry’s homologation has been based on the GTC, and then even further refined in a collective effort within the range of allowed modifications.
The GTR79 special edition we have introduced here is based on the regular SX 2.0 but modified to match the rally special in appearance and spirit - and as you may have seen, our recent campaign for the GTR79 emphasised ‘Drive the Spirit of Surprise’. What other manufacturer makes the spirit of a GT79 rally contestant (let alone a stage winner) available for a comparable price point?"
In one way, we can give Mara right. It looks the part, is fun to drive and sells for a price that is hard to beat. For the money, you will probably not get anything else that even looks like one of the other contestants.
The problem is, though, that we still feel like Mara is trying to boost their image by trying to say that they won with a car that was not much different than the GTR79 version currently for sale. For example, they now admit that the GTR79 is not even based on the same trim level as the rally winner, but on the GTC 2.5 - that hardly anyone has seen in this market. Something they have been very quiet about.
Is this then an argument against the Mara Irena? Absolutely not. But we feel that you need a honest view of everything as a customer. That will help you to do the right decisions, wheter it involves buying an Irena GTR79 or not.
But one lesson that we have learned before and that we can learn again - in war and advertising, everything is allowed.
(Thanks to @AndiD for helping me with the article, supplying the car and giving me the idea!)