80s LM Racers

[bigalan]

Jan 3, 2014 19:20:15 GMT HoTWire said:

^^^^ Good shout.

I'm rather partial to them in the Blue Coral livery as I saw two G-force Blue Coral cars race at Brands and they were indecently fast.


G Force Blue Coral Porsche 935K3 Sportscar. Silverstone 1992 by Antsphoto, on Flickr


Ross Hyett G Force Blue Coral Porsche 935K3 Sportscar.Silverstone 1992 by Antsphoto, on Flickr


Although it is worth noting who and what won in that race : www.racingsportscars.com/race/Brands_Hatch-1993-09-12-4337.html

Spotted this post in the Ruff thread, and it brought back childhood memories. I had a similar Porsche as a Superkings size toy, which I used to "race" against my favourite - a Pioneer 512BB LM (Matchbox Specials???)


www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/163/Ferrari-512-BB-LM.html

I'm too young to remember them racing for real:-( What other racing models were around back then?

[buzby]

Well, technically the Kremer 935K3 and Ferrari 512BB LM were both from the 70s, (1978 for the 512BB and 1979 for the K3), though they did both continue to race into the early 80s.

Le Mans is one of the few races where sportscars that were built to both European (FIA Group 5/Group B from 1982 onwards) and American (IMSA GTX/GTO) regulations raced against each other. Throw in the odd entry from the Japanese Super Silhouette Series and you usually got a pretty varied field compared to what you would see at most European sports car races. However, given the lack of sports or GT cars that were homologated for Group B most of the interesting stuff featured before 1986.

Triumph TR8 Twin Turbo Group 5 - built and run by Janspeed and ADA Engineering, it was entered in the 1980 edition, but failed to qualify. It was badly damaged in testing before the 1981 event and no budget could be found for an entry in 1982:


Z & W Enterprises Holman & Moody Mazda RX-7 IMSA GTU - a regular from the IMSA series entered in 1980 (and 1981), and finished in 21st place:

In 1981, the Mazdaspeed factory team entered 2 RX7 253is from the Japanese Super Silhouette Series in the IMSA GTO category (they had entered a single 252i in the 1979 event but failed to qualify), with Anglo-Japanese driver teams (Tom Walkinshaw and Pete Lovett shared one car, and Win Percy the other with thier rejular Japanese drivers). Unfortunately neither finished the race, one car suffered engine failure and the other a rear axle failure:


They returned in 1982 with the a pair of the more radical RX7 254is, with an all-British driver lineup in one car (Walkinshaw and Lovett returned, joined by Chuck Nicholson) and Australian Alan Mofatt sharing the other with it's regular Japanese drivers. This car managed to finish 14th, but the Walkinshaw car retired with engine failure:



March-BMW M1 Group 5 - quite a few BMW M1s appeared at Le Mans in the Group 5 and IMSA classes between 1979 and 1985 (the M1 was 'grandfathered' into Group B after 1982). Most were developed by privateers and based on modified Group 4 or Procar cars. This car was the first of the Group 5-spec M1s to appear, commissioned by BMW themselves and built by their Formula 2 chassis partner March Engineering. It was built to the extreme limit of the Group 5 regulations (like the Porsche 935/78 'Moby Dick'), with a custom alloy monocoque chassis and composite bodywork, retaining only the roof and windscreen of the original car. BMW were developing a twin-turbo engine for it, but it was not completed and so it was fitted with the same 3.5-litre N/A engine as used by the 'Procar' cars and Group 4 sports cars, which proved uncompetitive - it failed to qualify in 1979 and failed to finish in 1980 due to an accident:

Porsche 928S - a privately run 928S was entered in 1983 and 1984 in the Group B class by Frenchman Raymond Boutinaud. It was an almost standard road car, but still managed to finish both times (it was unclassified in 1983 and finished 22nd in 1984). This shows just how sparse the 'GT' category was after Group 5 had been abandoned:


Porsche 961 IMSA GTX - when the FIA first announced the Group B category, the intention was that it would replace both the old Group 4 regulations for rallying and Group 5 for sports/GT cars so manufacturers could build Group B cars that could be used in either category. Unfortunately, cars designed for rallying don't really make good circuit racing cars and the FIA ended up modify the regulations to suit rallying. Only Porsche (the 959) and Ferrari (the 288 GTO) bothered to build Group B cars that could be used for circuit racing.

Porsche created the 961 as the circuit racing derivative of the 959, retaining the 4WD system but simplifying the active suspension and replacing the engine with the twin-turbo unit from the 962 Group C car. It differed enough from the 959 that it had to be entered in the 1986 Le Mans in the IMSA GTX class (they would have had to build 200 of them to enter under Group B), where it was run by the Porsche works team alongside the Rothmans 962 cars, but with no sponsors. It qualified 26th and finished 7th (1st in the GTX class). Buoyed by this result, Porsche hoped that this would become a viable successor to the 930 for 'GT' class customer teams and continued development. It was entered in the 1987 race, this time in Rothmans livery to match the 962s. It qualified 31st, and gearbox problems in the race lead to a crash, with the car then catching fire on the way back to the pits. As the GT class was dying - the 961 was the only non-Group C entry in 1987 (and the 961 would probably have cost customer teams at least as much as a Group C 962), the plug was pulled on the project and the car was retired to the Porsche museum:



After the 961, there would not be another GT car entered in Le Mans until 1993 when the new GT regulations were introduced to revive the class (ironically this was due to falling entry numbers in Group C as the manufacturer involvement and revisions in the regulations had pushed the costs up to F1 levels). The GT class that year was infamously won by a works TWR Jaguar XJ220C, which was then disqualified due to not having catalytic converters fitted. TWR won the appeal at the FIA as it was not stated anywhere in the regulations that they had to keep them (and none of the other cars had them fitted either), but the ACO then decided the appeal had been lodged too late anyway so they remained disqualified, promoting a Porsche Carrere RSR to 1st place in the GT class.

[sweep]

Nice little read that

[Blown_Imp]

Thanks Buzby

[bigalan]

Great write up! Thanks:-)

That TR8 is exactly what I would have drawn as a kid if someone asked me to draw a racing car:-)

The later RX7 is incredible to, but that white 961? Stunning!

[buzby]

Thanks, unfortunately most of the interesting sports/GT cars at Le Mans were part of the Group 5 era in the late Seventies, and we covered a lot of them in the recent 'IMSA/Group 5 Euro Bosozoku' thread here

bigalan - I remember the Matchbox 'Specials' cars mentioned in the first post - I have a few (a Lancia 037, Zakspeed Mustang, Kremer CK5 and Ford Thunderbird) from the same range myself. They wwre 1/40th scale and produced between 1983 and 1994. It was a mix of Group B, IMSA, TransAm, NASCAR and GT cars that seem to be very much aimed at the US market. More info on the full range here

[bigalan]

Jan 4, 2014 10:31:34 GMT buzby said:

Thanks, unfortunately most of the interesting sports/GT cars at Le Mans were part of the Group 5 era in the late Seventies, and we covered a lot of them in the recent 'IMSA/Group 5 Euro Bosozoku' thread here

bigalan - I remember the Matchbox 'Specials' cars mentioned in the first post - I have a few (a Lancia 037, Zakspeed Mustang, Kremer CK5 and Ford Thunderbird) from the same range myself. They wwre 1/40th scale and produced between 1983 and 1994. It was a mix of Group B, IMSA, TransAm, NASCAR and GT cars that seem to be very much aimed at the US market. More info on the full range here

Thanks for that link - I had a couple of other cars which I'd forgotten about:-) Think I had two Camaros:-) I must have missed the group 5 thread:-( Going for a look now:-)

[HoTWire]

I like how every Buzby post gives me a new shopping list for Gathering guest cars

[buzby]

I'll just add couple more that weren't featured in that IMSA/Group 5 thread.

De Tomaso Pantera Group 5 - a semi-works effort built by William Sala and Giovanni Marverti from a new lightweight Group 4 Pantera chassis supplied by the factory, and run in the Italian GT series. It was entered for Le Mans in 1979, but was unclassified as although it was running at the end it had not completed the minimum distance:


Alpine A310 GTP - entered in the 1977 and 1978 editions in the GTP class, it was built by Bernard Decure with some factory support and was based on the Group 4 car used in the French Rally Championship. Unfortunately it failed to finish in 1977 due to a water leak, and did not qualify in 1978:


Porsche 924 Carrera GT - there was no factory 911-based entry for the 1980 race, instead Porsche entered 3 of these cars in the GTP class (as it was not a homologated model) in the hope it would eventually become the successor to the 911 on the track. It was derived from the 924 Turbo model, and was fitted with a 2-litre engine fitted with a turbo and intercooler producing 320BHP, a uprated gearbox, brakes from the 911 Turbo, lightweight GRP body panels and flared wheelarches which reduced the overall weight to 945kg. One car was driven by the British team of Andy Rouse and Tony Dron, the second by the 'American' team of Derek Bell and Al Holbert, and the third car by the German team of Jurgen Barth and Manfred Schurti. The cars all finished with decent placings (helped by it being a wet race) - the German car finished 6th, the British car 12th and the American car 13th.



Shortly after the race, a homologation run of 400 Carrera GT road cars was produced with the engine detuned to 210BHP. This was then followed by the Carrera GTS, with 245BHP and even more weight reduction, and 50 of these were evolved to Club Sport spec with 275BHP to become the basis of the racing car for the 1981 season, the Carrera GTR which had 375BHP in race trim. Four 924 GTRs were entered in the 1981 race, two works cars driven by Rouse/Schurti and Tony Dron was joined by Richard Lloyd in the second car (sponsored by Canon) and 2 'customer' cars, one run by the French Eminence team and one by Porsche Australia (driven by Colin Bond, Peter Brock and Jim Richards). The Dron/Lloyd works car and the Australian customer car failed to qualify, the Eminence car failed to finish due to engine/gearbox problems and the Rouse/Schurti works car finished 11th, first in the IMSA GTO class.



Three customer cars were entered in the IMSA GTO class for the 1982 race, Richard Lloyd being joined by Rouse in the Canon car, and the two-car B.F. Goodrich team from the USA. The Canon car and one of the American cars both failed to finish due to gearbox problems, but the other car driven by Jim Busby and Doc Bundy finished 16th, 1st in the IMSA GTO class. However, Porsche was now concentrating on the incoming Group C class with the 956/962 and belatedly decided to homologate the 930, a version of the 911 Turbo for customers to use in Group B so the 924 GTRs quickly became obsolete.

[HammerDown]

Wowzers.....how many times has these RX7 and 924s not figured in dreams of me and mates on building a streetgoing car to scare the world. Awesome stuff.

[buzby]

After looking through the entry lists for the 80s Le Mans races, I noticed a strange reserve entry in the 1984 race - a Ferrari 250 GTO was listed as being entered by Scuderia Bellancauto in the Group B category. I initially thought this must be a mistake, and it meant the 288 GTO as that was a Group B car and was released in 1984. However, Scuderia Bellancauto were linked to gentleman racer and Ferrari collector (and friend of Enzo Ferrari) Fabrizio Violati, whose Ferrarelle mineral water company was the main sponsor for the team and he co-drove their 512BB LM entries in the the 1980 and 1981 events, alongside his historic racing activities in a SWB 250 GT and a 250 GTO. Were they really intending to enter this car, chassis no. 3851GT (one of the most valuable in the world) in the 1984 race?

Whatever their intentions, it didn't happen and instead the team entered their 512BB LM with it's unique Pininfarina-designed lowline aero bodywork instead. Unfortunately it failed to finish due to gearbox failure:



Today, both cars are part of Fabrizio Violati's 'Collezione Maranello Rosso', based in Falciano, San Marino. It houses an even bigger collection of Ferraris than Ferrari's own museum as well as a collection of Abarth cars and a motorsport art gallery. Sadly, Violati passed away in 2010, but the collection lives on in tribute to him and his passion.