It was Timo Salonen who set the early pace on the 86 Swedish and he opened up nearly a minute gap after 7 stages. His luck though ended on SS8 when the engine let all it's oil go. Salonen, though, had proved a point after his second o/a in Monte Carlo had come in for criticism from the French media. He had been fastest on every stage until his retirement.

 

This put Henri Toivonen into the lead in his Delta S4 and he was cruising with a 1m 04s lead until a broken valve on SS13 put him out. It was then that Juha Kankkunen in his 205 T16 E2 took command and was able to score his first Europen WRC win. This was KKK's first Swedish Rally as well and this set him up well for his first WRC title.

 

The winner Kankkunen:

 

  

Ford had arrived to debut their pretty new Group B machine, albeit, six months late. The Ford RS 200 proved to be the star of the rally with Kalle Grundel taking an excellent 3rd. Blomqvist, on the otherhand, retired with a blown engine on SS12 but the RS 200 had shown great potential. Ironically this would be the car's best result on a WRC event.

 

Malcolm Wilson was another to display great potential getting up to as high as 3rd in the Austin Rover Motorsport 6R4. Wilson retired with engine failure after a cam-belt failure on SS14. Markku Alen wasn't happy throughout and complained of a down on power Delta but he did bring the car home 2nd.

 

Citroen recorded their only finish with the BX 4TC as Andruet took 6th but he was beaten by two Group A cars ahead of him.

  

The story of the 1986 Swedish Rally:

 

 

 

Timo Salonen was blistering until his engine went. This film is a slightly surreal take on that performance: