Rasputin Alkonost Raid

The **Rasputin Alkonost Raid** (Cyrillic: **Распутин Алконост Рейд**) is a fanonical Rally Car created by JustAlex93.

## Details

It was after the discontiuation of Group B and the mothballing of its planned successor, Group S, that Rasputin Motors went back to the drawing board. With the Alkonost-B and its Group S sister left nowhere to go racing, the comrades at Rasputin were looking for a new venue for their motorsports efforts.

They soon turned their sights to rally raid. In particular, the Paris-Dakar rally. In addition, they also had plans from when they were developing the Alkonost-S; Had Group S not been cancelled and Rasputin's bid in it had been successful, they would have made improvements on the Alkonost-S using the engine and AWD drivetrain of the Wulff Revo. This gave Rasputin an idea; Create a rally raid car that uses these mechanical aspects.

For this, they went into a partnership with Wulff to develop that car. They took the chassis of the Alkonost rally car prototypes, gave it a naturally aspirated 3.6L Flat-6 Wulff engine (tuned by American specialists known for preparing Wulff cars for the IMSA championship), the drivetrain of the Wulff Revo (boasting a 6-speed manual with a double-clutch gearbox), and a double-wishbone suspension system designed by Tupolev (yes, *that* Tupolev!) using their technical know-how in oversized aircraft landing gear. The car features two Gilstone shock absorbers on each front corner, and three on the rear corners.

Further input was received from French Dakar Gryazi specialist Rasputin-Hoch and Molotov.

The result is the Alkonost Raid. A few of them were scratch-built, while others were reconstructed from several leftover Alkonost-Bs, particularly of the road-legal homologation model.

The car competed in the Paris-Dakar rally, where it finished in 7th place in 1990, as well as 5th place in 1991. Not too bad, considering that it was during a time when Mirages and Tenrais were dominating. It was also the winner of the 1990 Rallye des Pharaons. The Alkonost Raid continued to compete in Dakar until 1994.

In 1995, the Alkonost Raid participated in the Paris-Moscow-Beijing rally (also known as the Master Rallye) alongside a couple of Gryazis, with the Alkonost Raid placing 2nd overall. Two years later in the 1997 Master Rallye, it placed 6th.

When the FIA discontinued the T3 class, the Alkonost Raid now had nowhere to go racing. For this, the Alkonost Raid was left to idle, even as Rasputin Motors adapted to the times, especially entering racing-prepped versions of their Blud utility truck for Dakar and other rally raid competitions in the T4 class.

At one point, the MotorStorm Race Authority extended an invitation to Rasputin Motors to allow the use of their vehicles. They readily accepted, and among their racing vehicles that they provided to the 'Stormers, a number of them are Alkonost Raids.

## Gallery

Rasputin-Hoch Rallye des Pharaons livery (Driven by Kramer)Triplex liveryRavenex livery (Driven by Mattias Nilsson)White (Player livery)
## Trivia

* The Alkonost Raid is based on the Lada Samara T3, but with some aesthetic cues from Western vehicles. In particular, the headlights of the Citroen ZX Rally Raid, the taillights of the Renault 5 Turbo, and the rear wing assembly of the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.5-16 Evolution II.
* The Triplex livery is based on the Trident gum livery used by the Samara T3 during one of its outings in the Dakar rally.