- 977
- India
- AfraidRacer
- AfraidRacer17
Welcome to GT Sport Track Tests! Every month, I will be doing a write-up and video about two cars, in collaboration with the Digital Car Culture magazine. These will be mostly be pre-2000 road and race cars, but suggestions are welcome for the future! The links to the video and article will be posted here, and do try the cars out yourself and tell me what you think.
Episode 2 Out Now:
Episode 2 Out Now:
Welcome to a special new feature, where we test the greatest cars from history in a head to head comparison. This month, we’ll be looking at the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona, and the Ferrari 512 BB.
To know the story behind these cars, we’ll have to take a step back in time, to 1968. Ferrari had just released the latest model in their successful V12 series, the 365 Daytona. Featuring a 4.4 litre V12 producing 352BHP, it was the fastest Ferrari ever released, and crucially, faster than the Lamborghini Miura.
After being dismissed by Enzo Ferrari when he had a complaint about one of his cars, Ferruccio Lamborghini decided to beat Ferrari at his own game, culminating in the launch of the sensational mid-engined Miura in 1966. Ferrari had to sit up and take notice, and while he stuck to his guns with the Daytona, he knew the next mainline Ferrari had to be mid-engined.
Enter the Berlinetta Boxer, or BB for short. The 4.4 litre engine was switched to a flat-12 layout, which decreased the centre of gravity and was easier to package. Initially launched as the 365 GTB/4/BB in 1973, the displacement was soon increased to 5 litres in the updated 512 BB. Although it’s heavier than the Daytona, it has a little more power, at 360bhp.
Both of these cars had moderate racing success, with the Daytona being campaigned by N.A.R.T in the 1973 Le Mans, and a heavily modified BB following soon after in 1981.
The BB was the start of a new mid-engined era of Ferrari, evolving into the Testarossa in the future, and the Daytona was the last front-engined Ferrari V12 for almost 20 years. To decide once and for all which of these cars is better, I took them out on track and did some laps with each car, measuring performance, handling dynamics, and lap times.
I decided to start with the Daytona. The first thing that struck me was the amazing sounding V12 up front. Enzo Ferrari famously said, “Aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines.”, and what an engine this is. Constantly high-revving, it simultaneously feels like a sprinter and a marathon runner. The way the grip breaks at the rear is extremely satisfying, with the car urging you to stay on the throttle and let the slide correct itself. Performance is quite high for only 350 BHP, and this is another engineering masterclass from Ferrari. Both a mile-crunching GT and a fast-accelerating supercar, the 365 Daytona is the ultimate front engined Ferrari.
Moving on to the BB, despite the vastly different approach in construction, the car feels and performs quite similarly to the Daytona. Even though they share very few components with each other, the BB still feels like a natural evolution of the 365 into the mid-engined formula. The engine is a lot more low-pitched and growly, and it feels like it has a better top end. The way it breaks traction has traces of the way the Daytona slides, and the chassis dynamics through the corner felt quite similar. What is the BB’s biggest asset is also its biggest weakness; the mid-engined layout allows for sharper control on corner entry, at the cost of the car being more unstable at the rear. The BB is a bit more temperamental than the smoother Daytona, but is just that little bit quicker in terms of on-track lap times. It’s honestly astonishing how close these cars are to each other even when left stock. The BB translates the 365 formula almost perfectly into a completely different layout, but the benefits also come with their own share of problems.
If I had to choose between one of these cars, which would I pick? For me, it has to be the Daytona, the apotheosis of the classic front-engined V12 formula. While the market may have dictated its will onto future Ferrari flagships, the Daytona holds up better when looked at 50 years on.
Both cars were tested in Gran Turismo Sport, with no tuning, stock power and weight, and Sports Medium tyres.
To know the story behind these cars, we’ll have to take a step back in time, to 1968. Ferrari had just released the latest model in their successful V12 series, the 365 Daytona. Featuring a 4.4 litre V12 producing 352BHP, it was the fastest Ferrari ever released, and crucially, faster than the Lamborghini Miura.
After being dismissed by Enzo Ferrari when he had a complaint about one of his cars, Ferruccio Lamborghini decided to beat Ferrari at his own game, culminating in the launch of the sensational mid-engined Miura in 1966. Ferrari had to sit up and take notice, and while he stuck to his guns with the Daytona, he knew the next mainline Ferrari had to be mid-engined.
Enter the Berlinetta Boxer, or BB for short. The 4.4 litre engine was switched to a flat-12 layout, which decreased the centre of gravity and was easier to package. Initially launched as the 365 GTB/4/BB in 1973, the displacement was soon increased to 5 litres in the updated 512 BB. Although it’s heavier than the Daytona, it has a little more power, at 360bhp.
Both of these cars had moderate racing success, with the Daytona being campaigned by N.A.R.T in the 1973 Le Mans, and a heavily modified BB following soon after in 1981.
The BB was the start of a new mid-engined era of Ferrari, evolving into the Testarossa in the future, and the Daytona was the last front-engined Ferrari V12 for almost 20 years. To decide once and for all which of these cars is better, I took them out on track and did some laps with each car, measuring performance, handling dynamics, and lap times.
I decided to start with the Daytona. The first thing that struck me was the amazing sounding V12 up front. Enzo Ferrari famously said, “Aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines.”, and what an engine this is. Constantly high-revving, it simultaneously feels like a sprinter and a marathon runner. The way the grip breaks at the rear is extremely satisfying, with the car urging you to stay on the throttle and let the slide correct itself. Performance is quite high for only 350 BHP, and this is another engineering masterclass from Ferrari. Both a mile-crunching GT and a fast-accelerating supercar, the 365 Daytona is the ultimate front engined Ferrari.
Moving on to the BB, despite the vastly different approach in construction, the car feels and performs quite similarly to the Daytona. Even though they share very few components with each other, the BB still feels like a natural evolution of the 365 into the mid-engined formula. The engine is a lot more low-pitched and growly, and it feels like it has a better top end. The way it breaks traction has traces of the way the Daytona slides, and the chassis dynamics through the corner felt quite similar. What is the BB’s biggest asset is also its biggest weakness; the mid-engined layout allows for sharper control on corner entry, at the cost of the car being more unstable at the rear. The BB is a bit more temperamental than the smoother Daytona, but is just that little bit quicker in terms of on-track lap times. It’s honestly astonishing how close these cars are to each other even when left stock. The BB translates the 365 formula almost perfectly into a completely different layout, but the benefits also come with their own share of problems.
If I had to choose between one of these cars, which would I pick? For me, it has to be the Daytona, the apotheosis of the classic front-engined V12 formula. While the market may have dictated its will onto future Ferrari flagships, the Daytona holds up better when looked at 50 years on.
Both cars were tested in Gran Turismo Sport, with no tuning, stock power and weight, and Sports Medium tyres.
Welcome back to Track Tests, where we test the greatest cars from history in a head-to-head comparison. This month, we’re taking a look at the Honda NSX Type-R, and the Mazda RX-7 FD.
Japan is no stranger to making great cars, but in the early-to-mid nineties, a slew of instant classics came out of the factories in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Yokohama. The Supra, S2000, R34, Evo, NSX, and RX-7 are all iconic to any car enthusiast across the world, and it’s these last two that we’ll be taking a closer look at today.
At the Chicago Auto Show in 1989, Honda revealed their first supercar, the ‘New Sportscar eXperimental’, or the NSX for short. Designed with the ambitious goal of beating the world’s greatest supercar manufacturers at their own game, the NSX took a straight shot at Maranello and Stuttgart’s latest. While the late Ayrton Senna initially called the car ‘fragile’, he and Satoru Nakajima helped in the car’s on-track development at the Suzuka race circuit, perfecting the handling characteristics and giving valuable feedback to the engineers back at Honda HQ.
Honda had made a few sports models in the past, but none had ever come close to the raw performance of the NSX. The Type-R was specially modified for the racetrack, stripping off almost 150kg from the base model. Powered by a 3.2 litre V6 with Honda’s patented VTEC variable valve timing technology, it produced 290bhp and was mated to either a 5 or 6-speed manual, or a 4-speed automatic. The Honda NSX had no lack of pedigree, with its designers taking inspiration from the likes of F-16 fighter jets and Honda’s successful F1 programme. Composite materials were used throughout the construction of the car, and an all-aluminium monocoque improved rigidity even more.
At the same time the NSX was turning heads, Mazda had been quietly refining the rotary engine concept for the latest generation of the RX-7, the FD. German engineer Dr. Felix Wankel had first created the revolutionary Wankel Rotary Engine in 1929, and used it to great effect in the NSU concepts during the fifties. In essence, a Rotary engine replaces the up-and-down movement of a conventional piston, with a curved triangle spinning around a central gear. Wankel engines have more torque, less vibration, and are more compact as compared to an equivalent petrol engine, and this is why Mazda chose to use the concept in their first sports car, the Cosmo Sport. Fast forward through multiple rotary engined cars, two generations of the RX-7, and a rotary powered Le Mans winner, the FD RX-7 was ready to take on any Japanese supercar, pistons or not.
The Spirit R variant was a special limited run of the FD, combining all the features from the previous models along with weight reduction for the track. The twin-rotor engine was supplemented by two turbochargers, and produced an output of 251bhp. The FD had no illusions of being a supercar, but through rapid evolution it had become more and more capable. The characteristics of the Rotary engine allowed it to punch above its weight, which was around 1270kg in the Spirit R. The clean and simple lines of the FD RX-7 epitomise a whole generation of Japanese sports cars, and it’s truly one of the most beautiful cars to ever come out of the Mazda factories.
Naturally, both the NSX and the RX-7 have a great motorsport history. The NSX was very successful in Japan’s Super GT Championship, with many wins, poles, and titles. Fans worldwide have no doubt seen the ARTA, Castrol, Takata, and Mobil 1 NSX on track or in-game, and while the regulations tried to slow it down because of the mid-engined layout, it still emerged triumphant. The NSX still runs in Super GT to this day, based on the second generation of the car. Honda also had a brief stint at Le Mans, with the NSX-R LM GT2. The RX-7 also competed in Super GT, though never directly against the NSX. The Asparadrink RX-7 is a cult classic, and is one of the best racing versions of the car. Mazda also holds the record for the most wins in IMSA during the GTO regulations, utterly dominating the series when it competed.
The NSX and RX-7 are some of the most successful cars of their generation, but in order to truly experience them, you have to drive them. After being inspired by Best Motoring, I took both of the cars out for a few laps at the Tsukuba circuit, measuring handling characteristics, performance, and lap times.
Starting with the NSX. The chassis feels both loose and stable at the same time, and the back end readily steps out with a quick yank of the handbrake. The car feels oddly stiff on corner entry, but there’s not too much off-throttle oversteer. Low and medium speed corners are where it excels, being quite planted on entry but also rotating well on exit. High speed corners are naturally more difficult due to not having much downforce. While the car feels very high-strung, the chassis is actually very planted. The NSX behaves pretty much exactly like you’d expect a mid-engined JDM car to.
Moving on to the RX-7, it immediately feels a lot tamer than the NSX. The sense of tension is gone, and it’s a lot calmer on the whole despite having only a little less power. That doesn’t mean it’s slow however, as a stable car often inspires more confidence in the driver. The car feels great throughout the corner, and the brakes are a little stronger. It doesn’t slide as readily as the NSX though, due to the front-engined layout. Of course, the sound is one of the best parts about the rotary engine, and the RX-7 delivers it. Once the turbos spool up, it’s one of the best sounds you can get from a sports car. The RX-7 definitely contrasts with the NSX, but it’s just as good to drive.
If I had to choose just one of these cars, which would I pick? Honestly, it’s difficult to say. Both of these cars have very different natures, and both feel great to drive in their own right. At the end of the day, it comes down to personal preference, whether you like a loose rear end and stiff suspension, or a more stable rear end and softer suspension. You can’t go wrong with either of these JDM classics, and be sure to give these cars a drive and share your thoughts with me.
Both of these cars were tested in Gran Turismo Sport, with no tuning, stock power and weight, and Sports Medium tires.
Japan is no stranger to making great cars, but in the early-to-mid nineties, a slew of instant classics came out of the factories in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Yokohama. The Supra, S2000, R34, Evo, NSX, and RX-7 are all iconic to any car enthusiast across the world, and it’s these last two that we’ll be taking a closer look at today.
At the Chicago Auto Show in 1989, Honda revealed their first supercar, the ‘New Sportscar eXperimental’, or the NSX for short. Designed with the ambitious goal of beating the world’s greatest supercar manufacturers at their own game, the NSX took a straight shot at Maranello and Stuttgart’s latest. While the late Ayrton Senna initially called the car ‘fragile’, he and Satoru Nakajima helped in the car’s on-track development at the Suzuka race circuit, perfecting the handling characteristics and giving valuable feedback to the engineers back at Honda HQ.
Honda had made a few sports models in the past, but none had ever come close to the raw performance of the NSX. The Type-R was specially modified for the racetrack, stripping off almost 150kg from the base model. Powered by a 3.2 litre V6 with Honda’s patented VTEC variable valve timing technology, it produced 290bhp and was mated to either a 5 or 6-speed manual, or a 4-speed automatic. The Honda NSX had no lack of pedigree, with its designers taking inspiration from the likes of F-16 fighter jets and Honda’s successful F1 programme. Composite materials were used throughout the construction of the car, and an all-aluminium monocoque improved rigidity even more.
At the same time the NSX was turning heads, Mazda had been quietly refining the rotary engine concept for the latest generation of the RX-7, the FD. German engineer Dr. Felix Wankel had first created the revolutionary Wankel Rotary Engine in 1929, and used it to great effect in the NSU concepts during the fifties. In essence, a Rotary engine replaces the up-and-down movement of a conventional piston, with a curved triangle spinning around a central gear. Wankel engines have more torque, less vibration, and are more compact as compared to an equivalent petrol engine, and this is why Mazda chose to use the concept in their first sports car, the Cosmo Sport. Fast forward through multiple rotary engined cars, two generations of the RX-7, and a rotary powered Le Mans winner, the FD RX-7 was ready to take on any Japanese supercar, pistons or not.
The Spirit R variant was a special limited run of the FD, combining all the features from the previous models along with weight reduction for the track. The twin-rotor engine was supplemented by two turbochargers, and produced an output of 251bhp. The FD had no illusions of being a supercar, but through rapid evolution it had become more and more capable. The characteristics of the Rotary engine allowed it to punch above its weight, which was around 1270kg in the Spirit R. The clean and simple lines of the FD RX-7 epitomise a whole generation of Japanese sports cars, and it’s truly one of the most beautiful cars to ever come out of the Mazda factories.
Naturally, both the NSX and the RX-7 have a great motorsport history. The NSX was very successful in Japan’s Super GT Championship, with many wins, poles, and titles. Fans worldwide have no doubt seen the ARTA, Castrol, Takata, and Mobil 1 NSX on track or in-game, and while the regulations tried to slow it down because of the mid-engined layout, it still emerged triumphant. The NSX still runs in Super GT to this day, based on the second generation of the car. Honda also had a brief stint at Le Mans, with the NSX-R LM GT2. The RX-7 also competed in Super GT, though never directly against the NSX. The Asparadrink RX-7 is a cult classic, and is one of the best racing versions of the car. Mazda also holds the record for the most wins in IMSA during the GTO regulations, utterly dominating the series when it competed.
The NSX and RX-7 are some of the most successful cars of their generation, but in order to truly experience them, you have to drive them. After being inspired by Best Motoring, I took both of the cars out for a few laps at the Tsukuba circuit, measuring handling characteristics, performance, and lap times.
Starting with the NSX. The chassis feels both loose and stable at the same time, and the back end readily steps out with a quick yank of the handbrake. The car feels oddly stiff on corner entry, but there’s not too much off-throttle oversteer. Low and medium speed corners are where it excels, being quite planted on entry but also rotating well on exit. High speed corners are naturally more difficult due to not having much downforce. While the car feels very high-strung, the chassis is actually very planted. The NSX behaves pretty much exactly like you’d expect a mid-engined JDM car to.
Moving on to the RX-7, it immediately feels a lot tamer than the NSX. The sense of tension is gone, and it’s a lot calmer on the whole despite having only a little less power. That doesn’t mean it’s slow however, as a stable car often inspires more confidence in the driver. The car feels great throughout the corner, and the brakes are a little stronger. It doesn’t slide as readily as the NSX though, due to the front-engined layout. Of course, the sound is one of the best parts about the rotary engine, and the RX-7 delivers it. Once the turbos spool up, it’s one of the best sounds you can get from a sports car. The RX-7 definitely contrasts with the NSX, but it’s just as good to drive.
If I had to choose just one of these cars, which would I pick? Honestly, it’s difficult to say. Both of these cars have very different natures, and both feel great to drive in their own right. At the end of the day, it comes down to personal preference, whether you like a loose rear end and stiff suspension, or a more stable rear end and softer suspension. You can’t go wrong with either of these JDM classics, and be sure to give these cars a drive and share your thoughts with me.
Both of these cars were tested in Gran Turismo Sport, with no tuning, stock power and weight, and Sports Medium tires.
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I'll have a comparison of these two on Tsukuba in a few weeks on my channel as well. Basically, they're equally fast, with the 365GTB having the slight edge, especially in driveability.
