The Acropolis Rally provides some of the toughest special stages of any rally on the World Championship calendar. The 1989 event, round 6 of the drivers'
championship, and round 5 of the manufacturers series, was going to be a make or break rally for the majority of the competing manufacturers - bar Lancia that is!
The Italian team have dominated the series so far this season, and were hot favourites to continue their winning streak here in Greece. World drivers champion, and current series leader, Miki Biasion headed the Delta Integrale works team entry alongside Didier Auriol, while the Jolly Club's Alex Fiorio was entered in a similar private car along with Jorge Recalde.
For Toyota this was their best chance in 1989 to get back at Lancia, and with their newly developed anti-puncture Pirelli tyres, Kankkunen and Sainz were confident that this was their event. Mitsubishi had three drivers entered in the works Galant VR4's including the ever spectacular Ari Vatanen and Jimmy McRae who was on a one-off drive for the Japanese marque.
Finally, Nissan made it a three-pronged Far Eastern challenge with Per Eklund in their March Super Turbo which like the other Japanese cars, continues to improve. Was this all enough to worry the 'rallymasters' at Lancia? Confidence must abound in such a successful team but they certainly had their work cut out at this year's Acropolis. An excellent event was the outcome, all fully recorded by the expert Videovision camera crews for armchair enthusiasts world-wide.