Gallery: The best bits of the rally stage

The home of the festival’s rally car action, fans found an assortment of machines trying their hardest not to point in a straight line, with a gaggle of the world’s best drivers and machines getting fully stuck-in. With more Scandinavian flicks, plumes of dust, and pops ’n’ whistles to shake a stick out, we’ve pulled together a gallery of some of our highlights.

One of the biggest draws this year was the Colin McRae and Richard Burns collection of cars, including McRae’s legendary 1997 Subaru Impreza WRC which has been fully restored with its classic period livery. From posters-on-your-bedroom-wall stuff to seeing it up close in the flesh, it’s moments like this that make FOS and the Rally Stage so special.

Joining the McRae/Burns tribute were the monstrously powerful Group B cars such as the Audi Quattro A1, Ford RS200 and Lancia Rally 037. A genuinely iconic and era-defining selection of cars from an unforgettable period of rallying history.

No Rally Stage worth its salt is complete without the much-loved Escorts, and we had Mk1s and Mk2s bouncing round the woods all weekend. Will there ever be a more photogenic rally car than the Mk2? We think not.

Not to be left out of proceedings all the way up the hill, we even had Porsche represented with one of those endlessly adaptable 911s, this time in the form of a Tuthill Porsche 911 SC, a car which won the 2017 East African Safari Classic Rally to confirm its quality as a winner on dirt and dust as well as tarmacked race circuits.

Add Minis, Ford Cortinas, Toyota Celicas and the Datsun 240Z – renowned for devouring the world’s roughest Rally environments – the Rally Stage was swamped with classics of the sport.

Taking us right into the modern day were the contemporary rally cars with the likes of Rob Gill, Oliver Mellors, Chris Ingram and Reigning Ladies British Rally Championship Champion Nabila Tejpar threading the classics of the future through the tight and winding Forest Rally Stage.

For those of you who made it up there, well done. To those who didn’t, we’ll let you off just this once, but promise once you’ve realised what you were missing, you’ll be the first up the hill next year!