Bemani Toyota Supra

[lemansfan]

http://s10.directupload.net/file/d/2355/p9tcyx57_gif

One Bemani Toyota Supra was in June at the Nürburgring for the DRM Revival .

[zakspeed]

st ursanne les rangiers 1991 pic of © lemansmotosport , my site

[KA]

I knew they ran two cars sometimes, but hadn't realised Bemani had as many as three Supras- is the middle one a Turbo by any chance?

[zakspeed]

gra dijon 1988

[zakspeed]

dijon gr A 1988

[lemansfan]

http://s5.directupload.net/file/d/2362/jwx7cjuw_gif
http://s10.directupload.net/file/d/2362/h8zjluj7_gif
http://s1.directupload.net/file/d/2362/2vgkkwjt_gif

Inside Bemani Toyota Supra .

[terryobeirne]

thanks for posting these pics, where & when were they taken?
if you also happen to have the entry program, can you say who the entrant was?
the detailed front picture shows the car with the wide flared guards used on the export turbo models.
information form the period indicate bermani did not persist with turbo cars as it put them in a category where they were uncompetititve.
it would be good to determine the current status but i cannot get any answers to letters sent to bermani
despite around 500hp being possible from the 7MGTE engine, the bottom end, crank etc is fragile and very prone to knocked out bearings.
toyota built the roadgoing "turbo A" model specifically to homologate some parts, but they never really fixed the engine weakness, but instead changed to the 1JZ engine. I cannot find any proof these were being raced in GpA, but there are suggestions some cars were fitted with them for test

[lemansfan]

http://www.adac-eifelrennen.de/image...RM%20Final.pdf

Here is the Entry List from the DRM Revival Race . Was there from Friday until Saturday 3pm and the Supra did not started for the Show Races from the DRM Revival .Looks that the Car stays in Switzerland .

[zakspeed]

dijon 1988 driver :muller -strycek

[zakspeed]

24 hours spa 1988

[zakspeed]

european championship mountain st ursanne les rangiers 1992

[KA]

Originally Posted by simon mathews

Hello, the car featured in the Simon Lewis photos is the Simon Pearson/Hugh Marshall car run on a shoestring budget in Thundersaloons from approximately 1991-1995. Simon purchased the ex-Cordy car, which had been run with a Cosworth BDT engine. We fitted it with the Vanderley built ex stars and stripes Manta engine, from memory the engine was 406 cubic inch with around 600 bhp and fitted to 6 speed Quaiffe gearbox.

Going back to the ex-MIL cars in Thundersaloons, an item from Autosport of 29th March 1990 on the Cordy car

'CAP Toyota Zooms in!'

Colin Cordy and Trevor Panter unveiled their exciting new Toyota Supra Turbo Thundersaloon project at the Williams Conference Centre last week. Built by CAP Autosport, under the guidance of Panter, the hybrid machine is powered by a turbocharged Ford Cosworth BDT engine 'in the interests of weight and reliability'. Power is transmitted by a six-speed Quaife gearbox, and will be fed to the road initially by Dunlop tyres. Cordy, who is Williams GP Engineering's Commercial Executive, and long-time racing partner Panter have evolved the potent Class A machine around an ex-MIL BTCC shell, lightened and stiffened for the purpose'

There's a pic of the car, showing it still looking very much like a 'normal' Group A car at that stage, without the big arches and spoilers usually seen in Thundersaloons

[terryobeirne]

i have located the ex Gary Willmington GpA turbo Supra that raced in Australia 1991-93.

[willofan]

Originally Posted by terryobeirne

i have located the ex Gary Willmington GpA turbo Supra that raced in Australia 1991-93.

So tell me Terry, what are they doing with it?? Is it for sale and are you going to buy it???

I am sure Gary would be interested...........

[KA]

Originally Posted by terryobeirne

i have located the ex Gary Willmington GpA turbo Supra that raced in Australia 1991-93.

That's good to hear Terry- always nice to find another one turning up. What kind of shape is it in?

[KA]

Changing tack a little, we've mentioned them in passing a few times, but haven't really taken a close look -What about with the RAS Sport cars?

To recap the story as best I can from memory and looking up pics and results, after RAS lost the Volvo deal at the end of '86, they moved on to running the Supra in a mixture of ETC and WTCC races in 1987.

Two cars, initially the 3-litre N/A rather than the turbo then one of each by mid-season, with sponsorship from Bastos.

http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc/1987/Spa-1987-08-02-015.jpg
(Reminds me, I've got a set of RAS/Bastos decals that I bought years ago for the Tamiya 1/24 Supra kit stashed away somewhere...)

Drivers were initially Maurizio Micangeli, Enzo Calderari, Eddy Joosen and Hans Heyer (apart from Micangeli it was a bit of a TWR old boys reunion!), with Frank Jelinski, Anders Olofsson, Eric Bachelart and Pierre-Alain Thibault joining at Spa- Micangeli and Calderari seem to have split with the team after the Nurburgring WTCC race.

The whole thing was a total disaster- they didn't appear until the Zolder ETC race in June, and when they did, the cars were heavy, slow and unreliable- failing to qualify either car for the first two or three races, and I think cut down to a single-car effort (Heyer/Joosen) for the remaining races after Spa.

They didn't re-appear at the start of the 1988 season, but did turn up with a pair of cars at Spa (think a 3.0 and a Turbo again?) in white Fina colours...
http://tentenths.com/forum/attachmen...2&d=1291466102
...but were little more successful than before, out-qualified by one of Bemani's non-turbo cars (Bemani started 17th & 25th, RAS 23rd & 24th) and both cars retired. IIRC they weren't seen again after that?

So what was the story- why did it go so totally wrong and what happened to the cars after their solitary 1988 outing?

[KA]

Originally Posted by KA

Going back to the ex-MIL cars in Thundersaloons, an item from Autosport of 29th March 1990 on the Cordy car

'CAP Toyota Zooms in!'

Colin Cordy and Trevor Panter unveiled their exciting new Toyota Supra Turbo Thundersaloon project at the Williams Conference Centre last week....

There's a pic of the car, showing it still looking very much like a 'normal' Group A car at that stage, without the big arches and spoilers usually seen in Thundersaloons

Youtube video of a practice session for the Brands Thundersaloon round, May 1990- the Supra appears at Druids around 2m18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYaoW...eature=related

[KA]

..and again in the race at Castle Combe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBi74...eature=related

[KA]

Another nice find- a clear shot of the #2 MIL Supra of Vic Lee, with it's Mulcahy & Hirst sponsorship

http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard...7627283400681/

[LordDigital]

Great thread.

Just wanted to add that what appears to be one of the original Bemani Supras is currently for sale. Body is more than likley 100% DTM specs ,engine setup is turbo which is not the DTM specs but rather engine setup used for other races. Quoted weight of 1050 kilos sounds absurd

Price appears to be $50k to $70k:

http://www.europeanvintagecarcompany...?VehicleID=355

http://f1sale.ch/F1sale-e/Fahrzeuge/...mani%20(e).htm


Also if someone is interested here is random collection of Race MA70 (Mostly GroupA)

http://forums.lorddigital.com/Projec...allery%202011/

[chunterer]

Nice kit and they sounded lovely, at least in 'atmo' spec. Shame that car wouldn't be eligible for the JD Classics series!

[LordDigital]

Just wanted to weigh in with a little info on the main subject - Bemani Toyota Supra.


First I wanted to clarify that Bemani Toyota Supra had no relation whatsoever to the original works cars (if we define works cars to be TOMs/Minolta Supras in Japan with a full factory support via TTA) becouse:

1. For one thing the Bemani program started before TOMs program was dismanteled

2.All Eurapean Racing MA70 Supras (Bemani Toyota Schweiz ,Shell-Toyota-MIL ,Bastos Toyota Team ,and one more I forgot) were not homologated in accordance to the original FIA/JAF SUPRA MA70 Homologation book (you can see it here if intrested). These cars also used DIFFERENT cages ,most noticible was the driver protection bars:

TOMs/TTA Cars:
http://www.turbosupras.com/images/Gr...terior%205.jpg

Bemani's :
http://forums.lorddigital.com/Projec...Kofferraum.jpg

One may argue that the above 2 are simly "Saftey" improvement rather than major difference ,however it is belived that Bemani performed some R&D on the MA70 chassis (see this pic) and also tested the original TRD cage on IIRC TTE rally preped car with a cocnlusion hat it was too strong towards the back of the vehicle (they removed some reinforcements there to cut weight) and way too weak at the front end (a conclusion proven to be correct some 10 years later). For this reason they compleatly scraped front end extensions of the cage done by Toyota and designed their own. Here is the difference:

TOMs/TTA Cars:



Bemani's :




It is widley known that Bemani's program was not factory supported ,but it is not so well known that in some respect was better than the factory TTA/TOMs program in the regards of the development. A good documented example for that is their engine improvements.

They improved the chassies from aroun 1200KG to under 1100KG levels in 89/90. This was still away from their targed Group A weight of ,I belive 1030KG?

They also improved their engines a lot ,starting from 290PS levels in 1987 all the way to 340HP@7000 rpm ,with a redLine of 8000RPM and 350Nm at 8000RPM. Here is some pictures in this regards:

Early Engine Bay Shot


Late Engine Bay Shot



Overall their results were not too imressive ,mainly becouse they could not compeate with the Factory Supported BMW and Mercedes Teams ,reagrdless of the fact that the Supra was clearly the better chassies with a double wishbone suspension designed with active participation from Lotus. Still Bemani managed one TOP10 finish in the German DTM and the following in ETCC and WTCC. Note that the Supras were almost constantly ahead of the non-factory Supported BMW M3 Evo's:


ETCC - 24 h Spa-1988 supra 3th in class
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...988%20Spa.html

ETCC 1988 500 km di Vallelunga and ETCC 1988 500 km de Bourgogne 3th in class
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...allelunga.html
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...8%20Dijon.html

WTCC - 1987 - 3th in class :
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...8%20Monza.html

WTCC - 1987 - Nogaro 2nd in class:
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...%20Nogaro.html

[KA]

Some great information here- I certainly hadn't realised any of this , but can certainly see the differences between the Bemani and Japanese cars now I know what I'm looking for!

Originally Posted by LordDigital

2.All Eurapean Racing MA70 Supras (Bemani Toyota Schweiz ,Shell-Toyota-MIL ,Bastos Toyota Team ,and one more I forgot) were not homologated in accordance to the original FIA/JAF SUPRA MA70 Homologation book (you can see it here if intrested).

The RAS Sport/Bastos Toyota Team cars reappeared once in 1988 (Spa) in Fina colours- Alternatively, IIRC, there was at least one other Supra seen in a few DTM rounds in 1988/9 (or was this a Bemani car in a different paintscheme, rather than their characteristic red/white?)
Reinhard Schall was one of the drivers, though I think there may have been others who had a run in it?
http://forums.lorddigital.com/Projec...mer-Leader.jpg
http://forums.lorddigital.com/Projec...cs/Bloemer.jpg

[KA]

Originally Posted by LordDigital

Overall their results were not too imressive ,mainly becouse they could not compeate with the Factory Supported BMW and Mercedes Teams ,reagrdless of the fact that the Supra was clearly the better chassies with a double wishbone suspension designed with active participation from Lotus. Still Bemani managed one TOP10 finish in the German DTM and the following in ETCC and WTCC. Note that the Supras were almost constantly ahead of the non-factory Supported BMW M3 Evo's:


ETCC - 24 h Spa-1988 supra 3th in class
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...988%20Spa.html

ETCC 1988 500 km di Vallelunga and ETCC 1988 500 km de Bourgogne 3th in class
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...allelunga.html
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...8%20Dijon.html

WTCC - 1987 - 3th in class :
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...8%20Monza.html

WTCC - 1987 - Nogaro 2nd in class:
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...%20Nogaro.html

As you say, Bemani did a pretty good job considering they were running without factory support, and had a car which was both overweight and underpowered compared to their main 'big' class opposition, the RS500 (Even at 340bhp, the Supra would have been a good 100+bhp down on a competitive Sierra!) Thinking back to the couple of times I saw them, they certainly seemed to be in exactly the kind of position you describe in the races- behind the factory-backed Schnitzer & Bigazzi M3s, but usually ahead of most of the privateer ones...

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by KA

Some great information here- I certainly hadn't realised any of this , but can certainly see the differences between the Bemani and Japanese cars now I know what I'm looking for!



The RAS Sport/Bastos Toyota Team cars reappeared once in 1988 (Spa) in Fina colours- Alternatively, IIRC, there was at least one other Supra seen in a few DTM rounds in 1988/9 (or was this a Bemani car in a different paintscheme, rather than their characteristic red/white?)
Reinhard Schall was one of the drivers, though I think there may have been others who had a run in it?
http://forums.lorddigital.com/Projec...mer-Leader.jpg
http://forums.lorddigital.com/Projec...cs/Bloemer.jpg

It actually appears that the the second Supra who participated in 88 SPA was I.M.C. Toyota ,are you sure that these were RAS Sport/Bastos Supras with Fina colour scheme?

Entry List here:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/cove...988-07-31e.jpg

Pictures:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...988-07-31.html


It appears that Reinhard Schall participated DTM under a team called "Bloemer" ,you may be correct tough - a single car team sounds to me that he migh've been using the 3th Bemani Supra ,painted all white. His cage appears to be Benami and not RAS S.P.A.L. (Bastos) lightweight version.

http://dtm.sport.msn.de/dtmdb/makes/...s.php?d=Toyota
http://www.bmwfaq.com/f98/las-histor...-video-478035/