I've seen Paul Jr. build a chopper with less caster than that
And the advantage to all that caster in the rear is?????
Anti-dive?
Maybe like a dual-suspension mountain bike - it goes over bumps faster ? Rearward motion at the beginning of the suspension travel means less momentum lost on impact. Of course, that's a lot more important on a 40lb downhill bike vs a 300hp 2000lb car...
No comments related to the flag on the side. Glad to see my ancestry is being tolerated.
Side note.... I've seen them on may rally car pictures over the last few years. But how stable are those built in jack spots and those simple triangular tube jack "stands"?
Did a little more homework and i can see now how they work decently by using an up angle tilting pin orientation.
Kinda makes sense. If you hit a bump at speed and the suspension has little or no caster, then everything in the suspension will bind or worse yet bend, since the impact is trying to force the wheel back. Add caster like that and the suspension can go up and back at the same time. IIRC on a strut type suspension caster doesn't really help much with anti dive.
I wonder about the work stands too. Up angle on the pins or no, all the weight of the car is carried by that one welded joint where the pin sticks out.
In reply to splitime:
They're pretty stable, the mounting points are tied into the cage and the part that plugs into socket is pretty long and beefy. (insert 'that's what she said'-esque comment)
I've been looking at a lot of these service pictures of current and past WRC cars since I stumbled upon this picture. It seems like only the Fords are doing this. The Focus didn't have nearly as much caster as the Fiestas overall. The Citroens have very little caster at all and it looks like about 0* in the rear. I couldn't find a good picture of any Subarus without a guy standing in front of the wheel opening or any other makes in service.
Links instead of posting giant pictures:
http://www.jaxquickfit.com.au/images/pirelli/WRC-greece3.jpg
http://en.redbulletin.com/uploads/cd_articles/ogier_blog.jpg
is it possible it's a packaging solution for adding travel?
Bluej - that crossed my mind too. As purpose built as these are, though, wouldn't it be realatively easy to allow for the longer parts? That angle wouldn't gain you more than an inch and a half of increased height vs the vertical....dunno, just my thoughts on the subject....
Gimp wrote: No comments related to the flag on the side. Glad to see my ancestry is being tolerated.
The polish flag is pretty well represented in the American rally scene. Pretty cool.
In reply to daytonaer:
Yeah, the Polish rally fans are insane too! In a good way.
2010 Snow*Drift comes to mind...
The other thing about the shocks being angled: as the angle increases the wheel spring rate decreases. If the shock is mounted ~10 degrees from vertical it's not a problem but at larger angles yes it can become a factor. KTM made use of that fact with their 'linkless' progressive suspension system; all the Jap bikes were using linkage to accomplish the same thing. KTM's engineers worked out the angles etc and mounted the shock without linkage thus saving weight and removing complexity and cost. Not bad for a bunch of Austran radiator makers. 
In reply to Jensenman:
Maico pioneered the canted shocks, Husky followed (Girling gassers!), KTM was late to the game. The most interesting "no linkage" progressive suspension design (to me anyway) was the ATK 406 from the late 80's. They never got anywhere in the market, but had some interesting innovations in the lightest open class bike of the day. Don't get me going.....
The angle of the shocks may or may not actually indicate the caster, but I agree, they are raked over pretty good.
Gimp wrote: No comments related to the flag on the side. Glad to see my ancestry is being tolerated.
Polish jokes are so 20th century..
Honestly though, I stopped hearing them about the time some shipyard union leader in Gdansk started making obscene gestures at his local Soviet.
And I think Jensenman's onto something about camber & spring rates. Maybe that's how you get a spring stiff enough for racing to act like a softer one for rally?
what about under braking? like tuna said, we don't know if the suspension travel actually compresses in the direction that it's mounted. i'm very curious what the dynamics of the situation would be like if it did though.. think about how braking and acceleration might be affected when going through rough terrain. at first i was thinking of it in more of a steady speed situation which it will of course almost never be.
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