In 1982, Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile rolled out an entirely new range of classes sweeping the main categories of motorsport. In the past, the Group system had been based around numbers, which had been reused to a disastrously confusing degree.
In order to correct the mess, and at the same time address some of the issues encountered in the dark economic times of the late 1970's, the governing body presented a system based around the alphabet.