Group A – unusual cars around the world

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by KA

I definitely remember his name and a pic turning up in the Rover thread. I vaguely recall him in Modsaloons before his brief BTCC career- (I think he had a couple of runs in either a Hodgetts or MIL Corolla in 1988/9 as well). I don't recall what he originally drove in Modsaloons- possibly a Capri? From memory, I think he was fairly local to Graham Goode, from somewhere around the Leicester area; the Bluebird was backed by 'East Midlands Transport' or something like that.

Can anyone turn up a pic of Eaton in the Bluebird- I think I've got a pic from Donington somewhere that shows about half of it as it was the car in front of the one I was actually aiming at- if I'd have known then that we'd be talking about it 20-odd years later, I'd have taken another pic....

Kevin was from the Leicester area and if I remember correctly his modsaloon as a (very quick) flat fronted Escort RS 2000 (which I should have pictures of somewhere!).
East Midlands Transport was the name of his transport company...

[Jesper OH]

Thank you, guys, for the info about Kevin Eaton. Those five races I referred to earlier was his only BTCC starts, then?

Jesper

[KA]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

Thank you, guys, for the info about Kevin Eaton. Those five races I referred to earlier was his only BTCC starts, then?

Jesper

The five 1987 starts in the Skyline, plus I think a few- maybe no more than one or two- in a Corolla, I think early in '88- Probably a Hodgetts car, but maybe the MIL example. I'll look the results out for you.

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by KA

The five 1987 starts in the Skyline, plus I think a few- maybe no more than one or two- in a Corolla, I think early in '88- Probably a Hodgetts car, but maybe the MIL example. I'll look the results out for you.

Looking at my own notes, I actually found Eaton racing a Corolla in the Donington 15 May 1988 event, finishing third in class.

As I'm looking for BTCC results in general everything in that direction will be much appreciated, but just might start a thread on that subject.

Jesper

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by KA

The five 1987 starts in the Skyline, plus I think a few- maybe no more than one or two- in a Corolla, I think early in '88- Probably a Hodgetts car, but maybe the MIL example. I'll look the results out for you.

Bluebird turbo, surely?

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Bluebird turbo, surely?

Forgot to mentioning that part!

..leading to another question or comment: Eaton bought a very well developed car. The Escort Turbos seemed to have been beaten by Eaton in speed alone during the 1987 season.

Jesper

[KA]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Bluebird turbo, surely?

Well spotted....

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

Forgot to mentioning that part!

..leading to another question or comment: Eaton bought a very well developed car. The Escort Turbos seemed to have been beaten by Eaton in speed alone during the 1987 season.

Jesper

On paper, yes, but the problem was the real inpetus had gone out of that class after Richard Longman's cars left the series (albeit sold onto to other people that ran them in '87), the withdrawal of the Metro's a few seasons earlier, and the lack of a truly competitive Alfa (Jon Dooley had all sorts of problems with the 75's) or BMW (no one bothered to enter a 325i) until Sytners' car arrived on the scene. It sadly became a 'privateer plus' series foir a while.

Kevin was an enthusisatic pedaller, but I think everyone knew the M3 was coming and therefore didn't enter any factory backed stuff!!

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by chunterer

On paper, yes, but the problem was the real inpetus had gone out of that class after Richard Longman's cars left the series (albeit sold onto to other people that ran them in '87), the withdrawal of the Metro's a few seasons earlier, and the lack of a truly competitive Alfa (Jon Dooley had all sorts of problems with the 75's) or BMW (no one bothered to enter a 325i) until Sytners' car arrived on the scene. It sadly became a 'privateer plus' series foir a while.

Kevin was an enthusisatic pedaller, but I think everyone knew the M3 was coming and therefore didn't enter any factory backed stuff!!

Another important fact is that the Bluebird suffered badly on the power front by not being able to run an intercooler by 1987 as the standard car didn't have one. (RS turbo's of course did).

[Southern Man]

Originally Posted by brendonwood1

OK, looks like I was able to work out the attachment system after all.
Here's the Bluebird in the 1985 Nissan Sport 500 at Wellington. The race winning Francevic/Delcourt Volvo 240T is in the same photo.
Photo is from Raceyear 1985 annual.

The (red) Bluebird in this photo was an ex Nissan NZ management car which was part prepared as a Group A rally car for the first Nissan Mobil series and I ran a couple of good mates Kevin Ryan and Inky Tulloch in the car. At the time of the race series it was still basically still a road car including all interior trim (so we did not have to fit a roll cage) Std engine transmission and differential etc, We had fitted the rally suspension and brakes which were most suitable for the bumps and bangs of Wellington and it could ride out Puke's famous bumps,
Later when all the rally upgrade was completed it was a reasonably successful car

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by Southern Man

The (red) Bluebird in this photo was an ex Nissan NZ management car which was part prepared as a Group A rally car for the first Nissan Mobil series and I ran a couple of good mates Kevin Ryan and Inky Tulloch in the car. At the time of the race series it was still basically still a road car including all interior trim (so we did not have to fit a roll cage) Std engine transmission and differential etc, We had fitted the rally suspension and brakes which were most suitable for the bumps and bangs of Wellington and it could ride out Puke's famous bumps,
Later when all the rally upgrade was completed it was a reasonably successful car

Thanks for some back stage insight, Southern Man. What did you call your team and for how did you enter it? I take it this is the same as the white Bluebird in from the 1986 Nissan Mobil Series - I can't find the link now, but sure it had #23.
Inky Tullock was one of the regular drivers of this series with a thing for Swedes? I don't know the brand of trucks he raced, but got involved with the Söderqvist Volvos at the 1987 Wellington WTCC race and the following year with the Simonsen family RS500.

Jesper

[Southern Man]

Hi Jesper
Re the Bluebird. My business was a small automotive repair garage in Tmaru on the east coast of the South Island of NZ but like many from the area I was also pretty heavily involved in motorsport both as a competitor and as a engineer for other competitors. I had for the past couple of seasons been running a Datsun 160J Gp2 (later modified to the new Gp A regs) in rallying as well as looking after Kevin Ryans 160J NZ championship Shellsport race car. The Bluebird started life as the car of the Nissan PR Manager and in exchange for a whole lot of dollars he offered it to me to convert to a rally car to run in the GpA NZ Rally championship.
We took delivery of the car the week before the entries for Wellington closed and we took advantage of the then Gp A rules and the Scruitineering schedule which at the time only required roll cages to be fitted to dedicated race or rally cars. On that basis, as time was short we left it in road trim with the exception of suspension and brakes. Naturally against the then new Gp A cars it was the slowest car in the field in laptimes but, because (a)we used a harder compound tyre that lasted the distance without change. (b) only stopped once for fuel and a driver change in the race (c) had suspension that could take the bumps and bangs of a street circuit and most importantly had a couple of class drivers on board who were smart enough to keep out of trouble and run consistant lap times where others were racing from pit stop to pit stop as they repaired things that they damaged we finished in a reasonable position.
We had been running 3rd o/a with about 30 minutes left to run then some of the quicker ones who were recovering from their troubles ran us down on the run to the finish. It was a similar situation at the 2nd round at Pukekohe but we ended up with the overall class win for the series.

Inky is still racing currently running in the NZV8 Championship after a very successful carear in both rallying and racing trucks and cars both in NA and Australia. Kevin is now the Executive officer at Timaru International Motor Raceway
The car ran under the banner of Rabbidge Motors and had support from AIC Finanace and International Harvester. The following year we dropped all the running gear into another shell (coloured light brown) and it followed the 3 car Subaru team lead by the late Possum Bourne home in the Gp A class of Rally NZ. A couple of seasons later we restoredthe car back to origional and it is probably still a road car somewhere around NZ.

The Haliday car was the first of the front wheel drive Bluebirds.

[Southern Man]

Re Nic May Campari Maserati Bi Turbo.
One of my mechanics keen to enjoy his big OE ended up looking after this car along with a couple of other Kiwi's one being Warren Burt previously mentioned on this thread as a Starlet driver. Burtie was responsible for the engine development then left the team and joined fellow Kiwi Alan Scott at TWR on the engine development of the winning Le Mans car

[Jesper OH]

So we're talking two different Bluebirds then? Yes, it was the Haliday car I was looking for in my earlier post (remember the signature on the car when seing the name), but didn't realise it was FWD!

Jesper

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by Gloves

What about the awfull Maserati BiTurbo driven by Nick May in the BTCC

A Marlboro-liveried one is for sale Here

[glyn parham]

Looks like it was this one then.


Taken in practise for the 1988 Spa 24 hours and driven by Thomas Lindstrom.

Glyn

[davyboy]

That's regular tenths contributor 'driftwood' advertising it. Maybe we should get him to provide some provenance here.

[Jesper OH]

This should mean that the car was one of the six Elio Imberti build 1987 WTCC cars. I have found a few details on the 1988 Quonquista Racing team, one being that the team was owned by 1987 WTCC Alfa driver Michael Nabrink, who by 1988 was part-owner of the Swedish Maserati import business. Early in the 1988 season a two car team was reported of, but what happened to that second entry? - and where did the Marlboro come from?

Jesper

[chunterer]

I thought that the Marlboro/Conquista/Lindstrom car/s only ran in '88 ETC and then the STCC after that?

The '87 cars were red and Imberti prep'd.

[KA]

So are we suggesting that the Conquista car started life as one of the batch built by Imberti in '87, rather than an all-new chassis for the Lindstrom/Conquista outfit?

It's probably come up before, but there's a site with some history on the Group A Biturbos here

http://www.mybiturbo.com/biturbo/home%20english.htm

[KA]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

I recently re-read the BMW 635 thread and found a hint of a Portugese XJ-S and I think our very own Frank de Jong has suggested to me that a big cat was around in the Netherlands too, but haven’t heard of either car otherwise.

Another hint of a Portuguese XJ-S....

If I'm reading correctly, it's Francisco Sande e Castro, in 1983

http://img132.imageshack.us/i/sande83bg4.jpg/
http://img132.imageshack.us/i/jaguar...conde2pm7.jpg/
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/4...izepadopm1.jpg


(Ouch- is that the fire truck he's hit....? )
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2...oconde5ur1.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4886/azarxd4.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/9...resizejit4.jpg

[andy97]

Originally Posted by KA

Did a 200 Quattro ever race in Germany? I know the V8 ran in the DTM in the early 90's, but was the 200 ever actually raced?

Going back a bit in the thread, I know but I have just come across this:

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

Some more digging reveals that it has run 11 times at the Nurburgring 24 hour race. It didn't always finish but its best result was 11th overall in 1999. Awesome. Started out life as a Directors car at Audi, apparently, & was then converted to a Group N spec car in private hands. Finally developed into a Group A type car with 450 Bhp MTM 5 cylinder turbo engine, DTM V8 suspension and 18 inch wheels.

[KA]

Just reviving this thread with some more Audi rarities- IIRC, earlier in the thread we mentioned the fwd Audi Coupes that appeared in 1982/3
I hadn't realised one appeared as late as 1985- German Audi specialist Abt Motorsport fielding one at Brno that year for Bernd Rauh & Friedholm Knoppel.
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...06-09-053a.jpg

The same pair had appeared at Brno the previous year in another Abt-prepared Audi- this time a 4wd 80 Quattro!
http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-06-10-056.jpg

[Graham Clayton]

No-one has mentioned the Volvo 360T that Mike Minear ran in the 1985 Australian Touring Car Championship 2-litre class:

http://people.physics.anu.edu.au/~amh110/360_racing.htm

This article mentions 360's being raced in rallycross in Sweden. Were there any circuit racing 360's in Europe?

[Jesper OH]

I think the Minear Volvo has been mentioned, but such an odd car for the job, so I won't bother much about being reminded of it!

The only 340/360s I can remember from European racing would be the Ingmar Persson Group 5 - later Super Saloon - Volvo 343 racing in Sweden in the very early 1980s. Thinking about it there was another similar car in Finland racing later in the same decade, and might even have been the same car as that of Persson. Can't find a picture right now..

Jesper