Group 5 racers from the 70's (& 80's?)

[hoffy]

Hiya,

Please excuse me if this has been talked about before. I post mainly only in the Aussie section.

Anyhow, over the last few years, I have really got into Slot Cars as a hobby. I have built 4 lane routed track in my garage and really enjoy it.

One of my favourite cars is Zakspeed Grp5 Capri. These have to be some of the best looking touring cars (If you can call them that) from any era.

OK, now the crunch. What exactly was Group 5? When was the Group 5 era and what championships were run under these rules? I know there were group 5 BMW's, Lancia's & Celica's, but what other group 5 cars were there.

Finally, is there any resources where I could get photo's and history online.

Cheers
Hoffy

[RickP:Clio51]

http://www.geocities.com/zakcapriturbo/group5.html

Tells some of the story... clearly the dominant Group 5 car was the Porsche 935...

[ben240z]

group 5 was running in the mid 70s as well. My 240Z was running in the european group 5 sports car championship alongside the capri's, porsche, bmw and a host of other stuff. I am trying to research the series but as far as I can make out it was virtually anything goes as long as the origonal type of engine for that chassis was used and the car was not space framed. Brakes, suspension, arches etc all seemed to be free.

[chunterer]

These cars were pretty fearsome beasts!!

I loved the Zakspeed Capri's and had several Burago 1:24 scale diecast models of them!

Whilst in Germany recently, I went to the Sinsheim Technical museum near Stuttgart and was fascinated to find one sitting in there. It was first time i'd seen one close up as their racing heyday was just before i got into racing.

Going off thread a little, there was also a Jagermeister livieried Grp A 635 CSi, a Trans-am Audi 90 Quattro and several rally, Group C ('87 Kouros Sauber, ADA and Gebhardt) and F1 cars including a 1987 Senna Lotus.

IIRC, although the 935 was pretty formidable didn't the Ludwig, Niedzwiedz and Winkelhock pedalled Capri's which were lighter, often humbled the flat 6' moby dick type 935's?

The Bimmer 320is that the BM Junior team drivers pedalled were also quite spectacular.