Prodrive Early Years
In 1984, the Porsche Rothmans Rally Team won the Middle East Rally Championship for three consecutive years and finished runners up in the European Championship in its first year of competition.
Rapid expansion of his new Prodrive company led to a move to a new facility at Banbury, Oxfordshire in 1986 (the current headquarters of this business). The same year, Richards' team ran a privately entered MG Metro 6R4 in the British and Irish rally championships, alongside the Porsche programme. The following year saw Prodrive begin a six-year relationship with BMW in both rallying and touring car racing. His BMW team won three consecutive British Touring Car Championships (BTCC) in 1988, 1989, and 1990, while the BMW rally teams began to dominate tarmac rallying across Europe winning the Belgian and French series with the Group A BMW M3 rally car.
A pivotal meeting with Fuji Heavy Industries at the Safari Rally in 1989, led to the creation of the Subaru World Rally Team (SWRT).
Read more about this topic: David Richards (racing)
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