Buying a used rally car

What car should you buy?

I will not give you advice on which car is best, honestly get the car you want to drive and find one in decent condition and go have fun. There are only a few rules about buying a used car and some questions you should ask before buying:

Now that you have satisfactory answers to all these questions, you are ready to move on to a closer inspection and try to spot out any red flags. The rest of this page is dedicated to common issues we have seen either at scrutineering or with people contacting us after buying a used car looking for advice. Some pictures are actually of cars still competing. 

The grandfathering rules

Even if the car already has a logbooked cage, make sure it passes the minimum requirements (aka grandfathering rules) of the sanctioning body you plan to compete with. Our Scrutineering rules page has the grandfathering rules for all the sanctioning bodies in North America that are currently organizing stage rallies. There is a screenshot below of the relevant section.

If the car is not caged or not logbooked, go check the Building a rally car page. If the car has a cage but needs a logbook, go check the Rollcage page.

New vs older cars

Older chassis do not have the same rigidity as newer chassis that use more elaborate materials such as high tensile strength steel and have crush structures designed to absorb larger amounts of  energy.  In the pictures below taken around 1994/1995 in Rally Australia, you can see a Subaru Group N spec car, built by STi, seam welded shell, welded in cage, no sill bar. It was ‘just a roll’ but the bottom slammed a tree of only about 6-8 inches wide, the bottom of the car hitting first mid roll. Occupants survived but hurt necks. (Thanks to Jeff Denmeade for pictures and information about this incident).

There is also the famnous crash of Peter Solberg at Rally Germany in 2004. After hitting a concrete block that compromised the cage on the codriver side, the following rolls and hard landings on the roof caused the cage to collapse on the codriver. The cage has a split main hoop design where the main hoop splits as a Y above the door bar junction. This design ended up being banned later on It was a lucky escape for the crew.

When you look at older cars you might want to consider extra reinforcements like anti-intrusion bars that extend to the front strut towers and sill bars that are gusseted to the chassis. Watch the lessons learned from our crash at the Burke hillclimb to understand the various tradeoffs of the different designs.

Bolt-in cages

Bolt-in cage or cages with removeable member are much weaker that weld-in cages. The bolt-in points create points of failure and those cages have been mostly banned for rallying. There are still exceptions for removeable door bars to accommodate disabled competitors to facilitate access but these are very rare cases. Most sanctioning bodies also require to have the mouting feet of the cage welded to the chassis and not bolt-in. The only current exception are for carbon fiber tubs where it is not possible to weld a metal plate but bolting is the only possible method to secure to the chassis. It is probably safe to assume that if you have a car with a carbon fiber tub, the factory will offer a factory cage option and you won't need advice from this page.

Here is an example of a bolt-in cage after a hillclimb crash. The hit mostly missed the cage but the cage distorted and lifted the whole dashboard.

Common issues

Some rollcages have logbooks but they might have old designs, illegal designs that were never allowed or just poor construction. We will list a number of things to watch for when looking an already caged car.

253-13 Forward V roof bars

The 253-13 roof bar design is legal but does not offer any support in the front roof corners where impacts are most like to happen in case of a rollover or impact with a leaning tree. Here is an example of an incident at a US event (100 Acre Woods) where a relatively low speed impact with a tree caused the cage to collapse. Despite the windshield support bar, the lack of a roof bar in the corner to counteract the forces applied to that corner of the cage compromises the cage integrity immediately.

We think that this roof design should be banned and if you buy an already caged car with that design, think about upgrading it with a 253-12 or 253-14 design (see the Ugrading existing rollcages section below)

253-14 roof bars without 253-22 rear bars

As it was always mentioned in the FIA rules, the 253-14 roof bars have always required the 253-22 rear bats so that the forces can be transferred to the rear mounting points. There are unfortunately a number of cars that have been logbooked without the mandatory 253-22 rear bars.

As illustrated below the lack of rear bars mean that any forces applied to the roof bar will be transferred to the center of the main hoop. This in turn will pull the corners of the lateral towards the occupants collapsing the cage down on the occupant. This will be even more problematic if the main hoop does have diagonals or just lower half bars (like the bars in green in the drawing below)

Design issues

Some cages have design issues like bars connected too far from a node. In the example with the white roof bars, the end of the roof bars in the rear are more than 100mm from the node that is connecting the main hoop to the laterals. Instead of transfering the force to the node, the roof bar will bend the main hoop at its current contact point.

Remember that there are also limits on the placement and size of the temple bar and door bars as well as how far gussets to the A pillars can stick out.

Here we have a car with a door bar that seems pretty high, if it is not over half the height of the door opening it must be vey close. This makes getting in the car much harder but also when you need to change a seat the opening to get a seat in and out of the car becomes much more reduced (though here on a 2 door, the opening is bigger). This car is also missing the gussets on all the door bars. Finally the windscreen reinforcement bar (see next section) should be connected to the front lateral and not the sill bar. Though it is a gray area in the phrasing of the current FIA rules, it is clear that applying a direct vertical force to the sill bar is going to pinch the tube and bend it depending on the amount of force applied.

Winshield reinforcement bar

The windshield reinforcement bar is now mandatory in all cases for ARA, for most cars it is required anyway, Just make sure the bottom of the bar is less than 100mm from the foot of the cage (see 253-52 on where to measure). This is a common issue if the mounting plates are on the floor and the doorbars are relatively high. It is much easier to reach the monimum distance if a box is used for the footing of the cage.

In this example the windshield support bar is connected too high on the front lateral. With the sillbar being relatively high this causes the door bar and windshield pillar reinforcement to be above the 100mm mark. In this case with the extra gusseting it is probably not going to be an issue but the idea of the rule is that you don't want the reinforcement bar to apply forces too far from the foot of the cage and cause the lateral to bend.

Another remark is the placemnent of the gussets. The gusset that is circled in the picture is going to be in the way of your foot when trying to enter or getting out of the car. This can be particularly annoying for small cars with tall drivers or small drivers who have a seat sitting far forward and limiting the space.

Fitment

Fitment can be an issues in smaller cars. It can be extremely difficult to fit halo seats in cars with low roof profiles or very curved lines. In the example here, you can see a seat completely against the harness bar leading to improper angles and distances to the shoulder belt (see drwaing 253-61-c for reference).  Sometimes it is the cage design that has not been fitted tight enough with the chassis sometimes the car is just too small for tall or large occupants.

Another aspect to pay attention to is how far forward the feet of the cage are. The further back the easier it is for the fabricator to weld but the least protection it offers and the further the intrusion in the cockpit in case of a collision.

Also make sure that fuel lines are routed inside the cage not between the cage and the chassis (this is a rule). It is also a good practive to do this for your electrical wiring. The cage shown in this picture has mounting plates/boxes for the front laterals that are pretty far back in the door opening and the wiring harness has been routed between the cage and the door guaranteeing if will be pinched on a side impact.

Missing elements

A number of cars are missing crucial elements of the cage. This is especially true for older cages. Be aware that ARA is the only sanctioning body that allows  to compete obsolete FIA homologated cages than don't even meet the grandfathering requirements. All other sanctioning bodies, even rallysprints/gravel trials won't allow you to compete if the cage does not meet the minimum grandfathering rules.

Any main element of the cage should either transfer its forces to a mounting plate or to a node

Mounting the cage to the chassis

Bolt-in cages have been largely banned by now and all new cages have to be welded to the chassis. Inspect the mounting of the cage to the chassis'.

Mounting plates just on the floor are likely to go through the floor like the incident depicted in the blue car here where the roof collaped and the cage feet were pushed through the floor.

The pictures below illustrate various configurations of plate or box mounts.

You can also see designs where instead of having the tubes connecting to a mounting plate on the chassis, a node has been created on a tube that is welded to a plate as illustrated below. Any forces applied to the node will apply a shear force at the base of the tube and cause the weld to break at the base of the tube as indicated by the arrow.

Pieces of tubes can be used as nodes for optional bars as long as they are transferring forces to other bars like for example the bars around the fuel cell in the 2004 WRC Prodrive Subaru (see pics below).

Sometimes it is not practical to plate the front of the strut tower and it might be necessary to find attachment points in the trunk area. Make sure the forces applied to the tubes terminate against a plate and not on a tube in shear.

Missing or poor welding

Some cages were not properly inspected, especially FIA homologated cages that get their homologation paperwork from pictures sent by the fabricator. The picture of the blue cage (that was eventually cut out by the owner to replace it) had tubes that were never welded as shown by the light coming at the junction where the tube was supposed to be welded. If you can borrow an inspection camera (aka boroscope), you can also find very inexpensive versions on Amazon that will connect to your phone. I recommend you inspect welds especially in the roof and hard to weld area like near the foot at the bottom of the A pillar. 

You will see below a collection of welds or tube fitment that are subpar at best. This is your safety, make sure the build quality is acceptable. Once again a logbook does not guarantee anything.

Seats

FIA seats expire after 5 years but Canada is the only place at the moment that enforces dates on racing seats and they allow seats up to 10 years from date of manufacture (so an extra 5 years after FIA expiration). Like anything else, seats are a wear item and need to be replaced over time or if they are involved in a major crash. You should use halo seats which are the only effective protection for side impacts to prevent your head to hit temple bars or B pillars (head and neck restraints are only truly effective for frontal impacts). If you cannot fit a hola seat in a car because of its cage construction, it might be a sign that it is not the right car for you. 

Check out Seat installation page for more information.

Also check how the seats are mounted to the chassis. If stock mouting points are used, the adapter brackets like the popular Planted seat mounts do fatigue and crack over time, so inspect them closely. Overtightened bolts to secure the seat to the side brackets might lead to cracks or failure of the inserts in the seat, make sure you inspect the bolts for tightness.  Seat size and fitment are also important, it is not one size fits all. The position of the driver is important as shown by the FIA Article 253 diagram below:

If you buy a project car that used to do rallycross or other racing without proper requirements for racing seats, you might find yourself in a situation where you will have to replace the seats (or their mounts). Also beware of counterfeit seats (check our Seat installation and Scrutineering rules pages for the latest info).

If you see a setup like the one on this picture, this is a good sign to walk away from that deal or be ready to do a complete safety overall that will require a lot of new equipment.

Belts

We have an entire page dedicated to Harness installation that explains how a harness should be properly installed and how new anchoring points should be fabricated if the stock anchoring points cannot be used. Belts cannot be secure to the seat its support nor to the rollcage. Also when securing subbelts through the floor, proper backing plates must be used. Here is a collection of interesting harness anchoring solutions we have seen over time...

Measuring rollcage tubing thickness

While measuring the outer diameter of the tubing is easily done with an inexpensive caliper, measuring tubing thickness is much harder. Corrosion can be an issue with older cars especially if they have been stored in less than ideal conditions. During an inspection to issue the logbook, the scrutineer will either drill an inspection hole to measure the thickness of the tubing or use an ultrasonic gauge (see video below). It is worth checking that the corrosion hasn't degraded the metal inside the tubing and made the wall size significantly thinner.

Homologated cages

Here we have an example of an homologated cage for a Ford Focus MK1 from Custom Cages that was homologated in 2000. This cage has a single diagonal in the main hoop and a single roof bar. This design was still accepted until recently for cars that only had a driver (though the diagonal would have to be on the driver side, which would make this design only valid for right hand drive cars). The unsupported corners in the front codriver side of the roof and the top of the main hoop on the driver side are the main weak points that would collapse if forces where applied to those corners (similarly to the 253-13 roof bar design mentioned earlier).

The 2 pictures below show on the left the missing bars to make this cage safer and on the right the deformation that the cage would see if forces where applied to the weak corners. Note that the windshield support bar design apply to the sill bar instead of the front lateral (as now required by 253-15/253-52). As show on the picture any vertical force applied to the windshield support bar will cause the sill bar (and most likely door bars) to bend., 

When the cage was installed the roof bar was installed in the wrong corner and instead of starting from the single main hoop diagonal end point it started from the opposite corners are shown be the pictures below.

With this configuration (roof bar in blue in the next diagram), a new weak point has been introduced to the cage. The front corner of the cage is no more supported (though the codriver side is now) but both corners of the main hoop are now weakened and will collapse if forces are applied in the direction where the corner is not supported as depicted by the red arrows.

This car as most of the other cars depicted on this page got a logbook as this wasn't caught by the scrutineer (nor Custom Cages that signed off the homologation paperwork). Always double check the current status of a cage regardless of the paperwork. Not all updates or incidents are always noted in the logbook,.

Upgrading existing rollcages

It is possible to add bars to an existing rollcage to upgrade its safety. If the cage was an FIA homologated cage, any modification will void the FIA honologation but as long as the specs of the new cage match the current ruleset of the sanctioning body it is possible to get a new logbook not based on the FIA homologation (this is trivcky in practice as a lot of homologated cages are made of T45 which is not allowed for the construction of cages in the US).

Below is an example of a car with a 253-13 roof bar configuration that has been upgraded with an opposite V (253-14). Note that the rear V bars (253-22) are not shown in this picture as the upgrade was not complete yet when this picture was talen. The single main hoop diagonal was also upgraded with a 2nd diagonal and gussets (2nd picture).

Road racing cages

Sometimes buying a car built for road racing can be a great bargin and a good way to same time and money on a rally build. Most likely the cage will require some additional bars that are required for rally but not for road raciong but this is how we built FrogSTiR. If you look at the pictures below we had to add a sill bar (required for NASA), the windscreen reinforcement bar and the missing gussets.

One thing to pay atgtention to with road racing cages is that oftentimes the cage have a different design on the driver and codriver side as road racing typically does not involve a passenger. Cages with aymmetrical designs like the car shown here would require bars to be replaced to have the same design on both sides (this particular cage has other issues but it illustrates the point). 

How much does it cost to go racing?

Watch the cost breakdown video below of what our cost was to do the OPRC regional championship in 2023