The World Rally Championship has a long association with humble hatchbacks. This is probably because of the sport’s grass-roots origins, when cars really were just road-going shopping appliances, and where the tightness of the rural European roads on which the stages were held favoured the small and nimble.

These days the WRC is used primarily as an advertising tool for mass-market products. If a car can deal with a Swedish forest, it’ll probably be alright in the supermarket carpark. The current crop of works WRC cars include the Ford Fiesta, Skoda Fabia, Hyundai i20, Citroen C3, and Toyota Yaris, and they are becoming increasingly (and gloriously) nuts.

Previous bloggee Horcik Designs has decided to construct his very own WRC contender to join in the fun, and it’s a beautifully packaged bit of kit. A three-cylinder piston engine is mounted transversely under the hood, delivering the power to the independently-sprung wheels via a four-speed gearbox. Working steering, opening doors, hood and trunk, and a roll cage all feature too, and the body panels can be easily removed to reveal the internal construction.

A full gallery of images is available at Horcik’s Flickr photostream – click the link above to the make the jump.