- 5,176
- Manila
- Filracer
"Some ideas look really good on paper, it's the real world that causes the problems. Back in 1995 Toyota decided to make a car for the GT500 class of the Japanese GT Championship. They took the JZA80 as the starting point, threw out the stock block twin turbo and installed a 2.2 litre 4 cylinder that had been developed by All American Racing for IMSA. It was much lighter and needed little or no money to be spent. So far so good but then some bright spark said "Let's go to Le Mans!""
"OK they were not going for an attempt on an outright win but the performance of the Supra was broadly in line with their Japanese opposition, the Honda NSX and the Nissan Skyline GT-R, so they would be competitive, sure thing. Only in the time since the 1994 Le Mans 24 Hours, the premier GT class had been revolutionised with the arrival of the McLaren F1 GTR and the Ferrari F40 GT-E. The Japanese teams were at a huge disadvantage to the Woking built machines and Maranello's old thoroughbreds."
_ Speedhunters http://www.speedhunters.com/2009/02/retrospective_gt_gt_toyota_supra_gt_lm_at_le_mans/
This car had two variants, the 1995 spec which is seen in the photos above and the 1996 spec.
