For sale: race-winning, utterly cool Peugeot 205 T16

Any old Peugeot 205 T16 Group B rally car is, it’s fair to say, a rather special bit of kit. About as far removed from a regular road-going 205 as a fighter jet is from a crop-duster, the mid-engined, all-wheel drive, 500bhp hyper hatch is one of the all time off-road racing greats.

But this one? This is a particularly special one, and if you’ve just put your hand in your pocket and found between €600,000 – €800,000, you’re in luck, because you could actually own it.

What caught our eye about this 205 T16 is its pedigree. It’s a bona fide rally winner, having seen action in the 1985 Monte Carlo and Swedish rally, both of which it won in the hands of Finnish rally god Ari Vatanen. Of the 20 cars produced, this car, identified as chassis C11, is one of three officially entered by Peugeot Talbort Sport itself, and ultimately took the 1985 world title. It’s a piece of sporting royalty like Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves.

The car is up for auction in Monaco, appropriately enough, in RM Sotheby’s auction on 14 May 2016. Before that, the car will be absorbing the limelight at the Retromobile show in Paris this week. That’s enough time to get saving, right?

Half a million quid, in good old fashioned sterling, buys you some pretty serious modern exotica, not to mention a slice of pre-owned Formula One racers ready for their pension. What’ll it be then – a legend from rallying’s fastest, most lethal era, or something a little more decadent?