Quote:
Originally posted by JEMMO
I doubt whether there were as many as 6 cars built. In 93 there was only one car entered for Patrick Watts and in 94 there was probably no back up car or another driver could have driven it after Matt Neal crashed his race car. After Matt's accident did Mazda withdraw due to a a lack of funds?
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3, maybe 4 if the Neal car was rebuilt/replaced is probably closer to the mark. As you said, the 93 effort was a single car, and 2 new cars were built for 94 (the 93 car going to Scandinavia). Matt Neal didn't race a Xedos again after the Silverstone shunt, so that car presumably wasn't rebuilt immediately- it was always a very low-budget operation
They continued with a single car for Leslie for a few races, but didn't finish the season.
The last Xedos appearance in the UK was Borgudd at the World Cup, in the purple/yellow ex-Watts car- Matt Neal ran a newly-built 323 Lantis, which he only used at that meeting (that car may have raced in the Belgian GT series, which included clases for tourers, a couple of yeas ago)
Oddly enough, Roger Dowson's team built another 323 for Borgudd to race as an independent in the BTCC in 1996(?), but it never happened due to lack of money- it tested (by Chris Goodwin I think), but never raced (like Andy Rouse's Toyota Corolla 5-door- does anyone remember that...?)
Those 3 cars may be the only Xedos tourers built- I don't know (without looking it up) whether any raced in Japan although I think the Japanese Mazda teams tended to favour the 323 (although had no success with it)- I don't think they ran factory cars in the JTCC much after 1994/5 anyway.