Tag Archives: Duez

600hp 4 Rotor Wankel – Mazda 767 #001

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For their tenth visit to Le Mans in 1988 Mazdaspeed developed a new longer four rotor Wankel engine that produced 600hp and fitted it into a new Nigel Stroud designed 767 chassis that replaced the 3 rotor Wankel powered 757.

Mazda 767, Kennedy, Terada, Katayama, 1000 kms Silverstone

Yoshimi Katayama, Youjirou Terada, Takashi Yorino drove a 767 to a 7th place finish in the 500km race at Suzuka in April 1988, the following month today’s featured chassis #001 made it’s first appearance at the 1000km race run at Silverstone where the car is seen above, it was driven to a 9th place overall finish and GTP class victory by Youjirou, Yoshimi and David Kennedy.

Mazda 767, Le Mans,

At Le Mans in 1988 chassis #001 was driven to a 17th place finish by Yoshimi, David Leslie and Marc Duez from 29th on the grid finishing two spots ahead of the sister 767 driven by Takashi, Hervé Regout and Will Hoy, but two spots the GTP class wining Mazda 757 driven by Yourjirou, David and Pierre Dieudonné.

Mazda 767B, Kennedy, Hodgetts, Dieudonné , Le Mans,

Back in Japan Youjirou and David scored the 767’s season high best result in the 500 mile race at Fuji where they finished 4th overall.

Mazda 767B, Kennedy, Hodgetts, Dieudonné , Le Mans,

For 1989 chassis #001 was upgraded to B spec which is most obviously differentiated from the original 767 spec by the side exhaust exiting the right hand side of the car looking from the rear.

Mazda 767B, Kennedy, Hodgetts, Dieudonné , Le Mans,

Chassis #001 was sent to the Daytona 24 hours where Yoshimi, Takashi and Elliot Forbes-Robinson finished 5th from 10th on the grid 62 laps behind the winning Porshe 962 crewed by Derek Bell, Bob Wollek and John Andretti.

Mazda 767B, Kennedy, Hodgetts, Dieudonné , Le Mans,

Back in Japan chassis #001 was retired from races at Fuji and Suzuka with fuel line and gearbox issues before starting it’s 1989 European tour with a 10th place finish overall and GTP class victory at Dijon with David and Pierre at the wheel.

Mazda 767B, Kennedy, Dieudonné , Brands Hatch,

They were joined at Le Mans by Chris Hodgetts where chassis #001 crossed the line 7th overall with yet another class victory from 28th on the grid.

Mazda 767B, Kennedy, Dieudonné , Brands Hatch,

These last three photographs show Pierre and David sharing #001 on the way to 13th place finsh and forth consecutive class victory from 18th on the grid at Brands Hatch.

Mazda 767B, Kennedy, Dieudonné , Brands Hatch,

David and Pierre drove #001 to two further 1989 GTP class victories at Spa and Mexico before it was retired.

Thanks for joining me on this “600hp 4 Rotor Wankel” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Le Mans challenger from Ligier. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Brand Presence – Dodge Viper GTS-R #C30

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In order to promote it’s new for 1995 Dodge Viper GTS Coupé and compete in the plethora of GT Championships across the globe in the late 1990’s Chrysler sanctioned the construction of GTS-R race variant to be overseen and maintained by the French Race and Engineering team Oreca.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The bare chassis for the Oreca built GTS-R’s were fabricated by the British company Reynard who had a long established reputation for building open wheelers from Formula Ford all the way up to Indycars. There reputation was enhanced by the fact that every time they entered a new formula they won first time out.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The 8 litre / 488 cui V10 motors were lightly modified to improve output and reliability, in all 5 prototypes and a further 52 Chrylser Viper GTS-R’s were built between 1996 and 2005.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

In the USA the cars were run as Dodge Vipers while in Europe where the Dodge brand did not have any official market presence the cars were run as Chrysler Vipers, with the exception being at the 2007 Nurburgring 24 Hour race where ’99,’01 and ’02 winners Zakspeed entered their Viper, which finished second, as a Dodge to mark the arrival of the Dodge brand in Europe.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

Today’s featured car chassis #C30, seen at Silverstone in the hands of Classic car dealer Florent Moulin, appears to have been built in for the 2000 season and raced by Viper Team Oreca in the US, as a Dodge and Europe, as a Chrysler, by Jean-Philippe Belloc, Anthony Beltoise, Ni Amorim, Tommy Archer, David Donohue, Marc Duez, Patrick Huisman and Boris Derichebourg.

#C30’s best result was in the 2000 Grand Prix of Sanoma where Tommy Archer and David Donohue recorded a class win and 8th overall in the Dodge branded racer.

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