The "I can't believe they raced it!" Thread.

[Liquid]

Minis were ten a penny but I would not be risking my import or Rolls-Royce against plonkers from the public. That's insane.

 

[05XR8]

I love Saabs and had no idea there was a One Make 900 turbo series.

 

[L8 Apex]

Early American sub-compacts like the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto were some of the most competitive models in the formative days of NHRA Pro Stock drag racing. And because both of those cars were offered in 2-door station wagon form, it should come as no surprise that at least a few enterprising teams decided they'd draw more attention by basing their racers on those variants instead of the usual hatchback body styles.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Anyone remember Brilliance, the Chinese manufacturer that entered the 2005 World Touring Car Championship but never turned up?

(A Brilliance show car appeared at the launch of the 2005 WTCC in Monte Carlo but that was it)

Well, a Brilliance touring car did race sporadically in China in 2006 and 2007.

Batchelor's Shot at Brilliance - Grand Prix Rejects

When Geely’s boutique manufacturer Lynk & Co. joined the fledgling WTCR series in 2018, they boasted of being the first Chinese manufacturer to take it to the global motorsport stage. However, thirteen years prior, another Chinese manufacturer could have made history play out differently...

gprejects.com

 

[Har1MAS1415]

The Peugeot 205 is best known for its success in the World Rally Championship during the Group B era.

However, a converted 205 Rally car appeared at the two Brands Hatch rounds of the 1986 British Saloon/Touring Car Championship.

In the hands of the late Mikael Sundstrom (by that time, a double Finnish Rally Champion), the car finished 14th on the road and 3rd in the 1.3 to 1.6 Litre class on its 1st appearance. Its 2nd appearance was more successful though as Sundstrom not only won his class but finished 3rd outright! This after starting from the pitlane due to a problem with his clutch cable to boot.

That result, combined with his best ever WRC result in that year's Rally GB (a 4th place), seemed to stand Sundstrom in good stead as he went on to win the next 3 Finnish Rally titles.

A Peugeot would not appear again in the BTCC until 1989 when Mike Jordan raced a 309 in the 1.6 to 2 Litre Class.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Proton Satria Neo S2000 in the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship

A Proton Satria also briefly raced in the British Touring Car Championship.

Towards the end of the 2001 Season, TH Motorsport entered Steven Wood in the Production Class at Silverstone and Brands Hatch. He finished 3 out of 4 races with his best result being 15th on the road and 7th in Class in the Feature Race at Silverstone (The one where Yvan Muller and Jason Plato had their infamous collision which earned Plato a penalty demoting him from 1st to 3rd).

TH Motorsport and Wood continued in the Production Class in 2002 but switched to a Mitsubishi Carisma. Still, they gave Proton its BTCC debut.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

The Mazda 929 was one of the more unusual entries of the Group A era of Touring Car Racing.

Built, developed and entered by Dutch driver Hans van der Beek with support from the Dutch arm of Mazda, the main purpose of the car was to enter the Spa 24 Hours, which it did from 1986 to 1988. Its only finish was 23rd out of 25 finishers (10th in Class) in 1988.

It competed mainly in the Dutch touring car series but it did notably finish 9th (2nd in Class) in the 1986 RAC Tourist Trophy in the hands of Van der Beek and Raymond Coronel.

Restoration Mazda 929 Group A

PROJECTS Restoration Mazda 929 Group A Vink Motorsport is restoring this unique Group A car with rotary engine. The Mazda was built in 1985 by Dutch race driver Hans van der Beek to compete in the famous Spa 24 hr. With support of Mazda the Netherlands, this private team developed

www.vinkmotorsport.com

 

[Har1MAS1415]

A CMR Racing-run Nissan Almera from the 1990s has been one of the more unusual entries at British Racing & Sports Car Club and 750 Motor Club meetings in recent times.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

Mercedes-Benz G-Class - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Mercedes 280 GE, originally designed for the military, a modified version ended up winning the 1983 Paris-Dakar Rally.

Here is the vehicle in question with Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur as the winning crew.

 

[GTracer38]

View attachment 1392319
A CMR Racing-run Nissan Almera from the 1990s has been one of the more unusual entries at British Racing & Sports Car Club and 750 Motor Club meetings in recent times.

There's a one-make series for those (or similar) down here in Aus. They get good numbers, particularly in NSW. https://www.apra.club/

 

[Har1MAS1415]

There's a one-make series for those (or similar) down here in Aus. They get good numbers, particularly in NSW. https://www.apra.club/
View attachment 1392666

I just came across the Nissan Almera story here in the UK and thought it was worth a mention.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

The late Tom Wheatcroft introduced Formula Classic as a pan-European series in 1995. A fleet of identical front engined 1950s-style racers with skinny wheels (numbers vary from 15 to as many as 26), competed for a large cash prize (£100K, according to some sources).

One of the problems was it was very expensive to take part. After poor entries to the first round, the grid was filled by giving cheap or free entries to some quite quick drivers.

They also had the wrong engines. Originally Vauxhall Carlton 6 cylinder units were quoted which would have allowed a suitable soundtrack even when silenced but they emerged with a 4 cylinder Ford engine that didn't sound right at all.

The engines were originally built by Holbay, who were already in financial troubles at the time they took on the contract, and eventually went bust after the death of founder John Read in a flying accident- by this time, Wheatcroft had written off the entire Formula Classic project (at a cost of £1.6m apparently), although some development work did apparently continue on the car for some time after the series was canned.

The modern tyres they used didn't promote the 4-wheel-drifts suggested by the PR blurb either.

After 2 meetings, the series collapsed. They only raced at Donington Park and each meeting had two races, although there had been plans for the series to race at the Osterreichring, Brno, Zandvoort, Zolder, Nogaro and Paul Ricard.

The only really notable competitors were ex-F1 drivers Martin Donnelly and Perry McCarthy and former British Superbike and Truck Racing Champion Steve Parrish.

 

[Har1MAS1415]

This is the Protos. Designed by Frank Costin and powered by a 1.6 litre Ford-Cosworth, it competed in the inaugural European Formula 2 Season in 1967 with Ron Harris Racing running the cars. It only scored 8 points all season in the hands of Brian Hart with the best result being 2nd at Hockenheim. The only other notable driver of the Protos was Pedro Rodriguez. He had 3 races in the car but he was a graded driver ineligible for points and wouldn't have scored anyway as his best result was 7th at Jarama.

The Protos was also notably entered in the 1967 German GP, with Hart and Kurt Ahrens Jr. as the drivers, they were ineligible for points due to being F2 entrants. They qualified 22nd (Ahrens) and 24th (Hart) of the 26 entrants, out qualifying only Guy Ligier's F1 Brabham and Brian Redman's F2 Lola. Ahrens lasted 4 laps of the Nordschleife before his radiator failed. Hart finished 12th and last on the road but there are conflicting reports as regards to whether he was classified or not because he was 3 laps down.

Now, what was unbelievable about why this car raced? It was made from very light but fragile plywood and had an almost-enclosed 'bubble' canopy over the cockpit and inboard suspension, which was unusual by F2 standards at the time. The wooden monocoque aruuably saved Rodriguez's life when he crashed heavily at Enna. The canopy also allowed for unimpaired vision when Hart was following a car that then suffered an engine failure, spraying oil all over the Protos.

However, the car suffered from the ride height being too high and being overweight. It also didn't help that Costin only had 127 days and a £20K commission to actually design and build car once he'd penned it so there was no time or money for proper testing or development. Needless to say, the car never raced competitively after 1967 with Ron Harris Racing switching to Tecno for the 1968 season.