Group A – unusual cars around the world

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by racer69

Goss' Jaguar is nowadays displayed as a replica of the 1985 Bathurst winning 1985 JRA Jaguar, even though the car raced in Group C trim from 1980-1984, before being converted to Group A trim for the 1986 Bathurst 1000 after TWR & JRA withdrew their Jaguar/Rover Vitesse entry.

Interesting, I can't remember why TWR didn't enter in 1986, I thought it odd at the time as surely they would have fancied their chances with either the XJS or Vitesses?

What were the reasons for the no-show racer69?

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by chunterer

..Back to you older post a sec as well, i'm not sure about the Metro Turbo suffering against competition you know. When ARG pulled the works backing midway through '84 it was still very much in development and ironing out bugs. Watts and Brundle still hadn't IMO, been able to get the best from the cars. Also Remember that Soper performance early in 1985 at Silverstone?!!! Ok, so Steve was one of the fastest tin top guys of all time, but I think it showed what that car could do with all guns blazing....

With the right drivers, I reckon that little car would have given the Escort RST trouble on tighter tracks and would only have looked past it when the M3turned up - to be honest nothing would have troubled that thing in the end!!

A nice match up might have been Longman, versus Watts in the Metro and someone like Sytner in an 325i and Goode with the Bluebird in Britain!!!

Unfortunately, what did for the Metro turbo (and the Bluebird) was a clarification of the intercooler regulations. I can't remember the wording exactly, but think it was that the standard intercooler must be used. The Metro didn't have one. Before this clarification the cars were fitted with a huge intercooler...

[Jesper OH]

The Maserati Biturbo and Alfa 75 Turbo was also affected by the size of intercooler size, but only when the Group A regulations were reviewed for the 1988 season, which must have been 3-4 years after the Metro/Bluebird cases.

Jesper

[Al Weyman]

I know someone who is building a replica Group 2 XJ12 Coupe that should be out sometime this year.

[brendonwood1]

Originally Posted by brendonwood1

There were two Holden Commodore VH V8s in the 1984 Benson & Hedges endurance series. These were Group 1 production cars that had raced in the previous season and were upgraded a bit. The ran on slicks and would have had engine and suspension upgrades. However, they were probably quite stock. Others from New Zealand may have more information.
The quickest of the two cars was the gold coloured Denny Hulme/Ray Smith car that was sponsored by the Auckland Coin & Bullion Exchange. This was the car that won the 1983 Pukekohe 6-hour race in Group 1 trim and it provided the strongest challenge to the two BMW 634CSi racers driven in the 1984 series by Neville Crichton/Wayne Wilkinson and Kent Baigent/Neal Lowe.

Thanks to the links to the Flikr photos that KA provided earlier, here's a couple of pictures of the Hulme/Smith Commodore VH in Group A trim:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8021817...7606711071500/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/8021817...7606711071500/

Also, Jesper has mentioned that Toyota Starlets of various types raced in the JTCC. Well, one appeared in NZ for a few years between 1985 and 87, driven by Warren Burt. Picture here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8021817...7606711071500/

[brendonwood1]

Originally Posted by KA

APrince/Hourigan car in NZ
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8021817@N07/2791283259/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8021817@N07/2780280349/

which appeared in at least one of the Wellington Nissan-Mobil races in '85/6
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...ellington.html
but that's about it- I don't think I know of there having been a privateer XJS anywhere in Europe?

If I remember correctly, the Prince/Hourigan Jag first appeared at the three round B&H series (Manfield, Baypark, Pukekohe) in 1985 and was raced by the team up until at least the January 1987 Nissan Mobil 500 series at Wellington and Pukekohe.
Would have done a number of races in the '85-86 B&H series, 86-87 NZ Touring Car Championship, 1986 Simpson series and the 86-87 Nissan Mobil series. It may have even appeared in a few NZ Touring Car Championship races in the late 80s when the organisers tried to boost flagging Group A fields by allowing cars any car that had been homologated in Group A to run in their original specification - even if the cars were out of homologation.

The car was probably quite stock.
I remember it had a practice crash at Wellington in either 1986 or 87.

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by brendonwood1

If I remember correctly, the Prince/Hourigan Jag first appeared at the three round B&H series (Manfield, Baypark, Pukekohe) in 1985 and was raced by the team up until at least the January 1987 Nissan Mobil 500 series at Wellington and Pukekohe.
Would have done a number of races in the '85-86 B&H series, 86-87 NZ Touring Car Championship, 1986 Simpson series and the 86-87 Nissan Mobil series. It may have even appeared in a few NZ Touring Car Championship races in the late 80s when the organisers tried to boost flagging Group A fields by allowing cars any car that had been homologated in Group A to run in their original specification - even if the cars were out of homologation.

The car was probably quite stock.
I remember it had a practice crash at Wellington in either 1986 or 87.

I'm quite a novice regarding New Zealand Group A racing, but from what I have found a national champion was crowned from sprint races held during the early months of the calender year - January, February - along side the FAtlantic series. From another source I have information that Kent Baigent smashed his BMW 635 CSi pretty badly at a Benson & Hedges series meeting at Manfield October 1985. Finally that the Nissan Mobil 500 endurance series was initially held around January and February 1985-1987, before moving into the October-December slot 1987-1994 or '95.
I think Autosport covered the 1990 or 1991 FAtlantic and FFord series seriously with the TranzAm cars also being mentioned at a regular basis. But few words left for Group A since they were very few apparently and that they probably didn't run at all meetings.

Jesper

[johnh875]

Re privateer Jag XJS', the Aust. Muscle Car Magazine had an article on Gary Wilmington including his XJS which he said was one of the cheapest cars he'd raced! This included sourcing very cheap warranty-replaced engines from Jaguar Rover Australia.

[chunterer]

'Very cheap warranty-replaced engines from JRA?'

You mean he got some free engines or something? He would still have had to upgrade them to Grp A spec motors though surely?

[chavez]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Interesting, I can't remember why TWR didn't enter in 1986, I thought it odd at the time as surely they would have fancied their chances with either the XJS or Vitesses?

What were the reasons for the no-show racer69?

I understand the reason was the devaluation of the Aussie Dollar against the Pound.

The cost for JRA to bring out the team for '86 proved to be prohibitive.

[brendonwood1]

Originally Posted by chavez

I understand the reason was the devaluation of the Aussie Dollar against the Pound.

The cost for JRA to bring out the team for '86 proved to be prohibitive.

That's my memory of it as well.
I believe the original plan was to bring two Jags and two Rovers over to race. The Jags would have been driven by John Goss/Armin Hahne - defending their 1985 win, and Tom Walkinshaw/Win Percy.
The Rovers were to be driven by Denny Hulme/Jeff Allam and Neville Crichton/Ron Dickson.
I read that Tom was so serious about defending the 1985 victory against what would have been stronger opposition that he converted at least one XJS to left hand drive to better suit the anti-clockwise nature of Bathurst.

Once the planned attack was called off, Denny Hulme found a drive in the Mercedes, Neville Crichton joined the Volvo Australia Dealer Team and John Goss converted his old Group C Jag to Group A specs.

To get some idea of how the Jags would have gone, its worth watching the video on Youtube of the 1986 Fuji 500.
It shows the Walkinshaw Jaguar and the Brock Commodore duelling on Fuji's long straights - where it seemed they were pretty equal to each other. The Jag seemed to have slightly a slightly higher top speed, but the Commodore was able to brake latter.
Also, the Commodores and Jags proved pretty equal at the fast Pukekohe circuit when the XJS made its final appearance in the second round of the Jan 1987 Nissan Mobil series. The Commodore won out on that occasion (the Perkins/Hulme car), but the XJS was second.
It probably would have been a similar scenario at Bathurst. Certainly the Jaguars would have found the 1986 opposition considerably stronger than the 1985 opposition.
In fact the Rovers, which would have been just as fast as the Commodore and XJS on the long haul up Mountain Straight and down Conrad, might have been quicker then both across the top. We'll never know, the the Allam/Hulme Rover may well have been a strong chance if it had started in the 1986 Bathurst 1000.

[brendonwood1]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

I'm quite a novice regarding New Zealand Group A racing, but from what I have found a national champion was crowned from sprint races held during the early months of the calender year - January, February - along side the FAtlantic series. From another source I have information that Kent Baigent smashed his BMW 635 CSi pretty badly at a Benson & Hedges series meeting at Manfield October 1985. Finally that the Nissan Mobil 500 endurance series was initially held around January and February 1985-1987, before moving into the October-December slot 1987-1994 or '95.
I think Autosport covered the 1990 or 1991 FAtlantic and FFord series seriously with the TranzAm cars also being mentioned at a regular basis. But few words left for Group A since they were very few apparently and that they probably didn't run at all meetings.

Jesper

The New Zealand Touring Car Championship did indeed run alongside the Formula Atlantic series during December/January.
The Group A cars were very much second tier in that series compared to the Formula Atlantic and the Sports Sedans/Transams.

The support race for the NZ Grand Prix tended to attract slightly bigger fields of Group A cars. However, most teams tended to save their budgets for the endurance series.

Group A was very popular in its early years in New Zealand. Especially the Nissan Mobil series held at Wellington and Pukekohe.
However, once the BMW M3 and Sierra RS500 appeared on the scene, Group A started to decline in NZ. The costs became prohibitive for most of the local teams.
The Nissan Mobil series remained a high point through until the end of Group A in 1992 - with Australian and European teams coming to compete. The NZ teams had their best chance to win the Wellington 500 in Group A's early years. In fact the first Nissan Mobil 500 was won by the local Mark Petch owned Volvo 240T in the hands of Robbie Francevic/Michel Delcourt.
No New Zealand team managed to win the race again until 1993 when Owen Evans and Bruno Eichmann won in a local Porsche 911. However, by then the race was for NZ GT cars, FIA Class 2 (Super Tourers), Group N and NZ Production cars - and the field was of much lower quality than during the Group A years.

[brendonwood1]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

From another source I have information that Kent Baigent smashed his BMW 635 CSi
Jesper

Yes. After a successful appearance in the 1985 Bathurst 1000 netted them 5th outright, Neal Lowe and Kent Baigent started the 1985 Benson & Hedges series as joint favourites with the Trevor Crowe/Tony Longhurst BMW 635CSi.
Baigent was disputing the lead of the open round at Manfield with the Commodore VK driven by Denny Hulme. The two cars touched, and the Baigent BMW ended up flipping two or three times.
It was a bad smash. Kent broke his arm. I remember seeing a photo of the BMW in the NZ Herald after the crash and wondering how he got out alive. The car certainly never raced again.
Not only that, one of the favourite teams for the Benson & Hedges and Nissan Mobil series was left on the sidelines for the rest of the summer.
Neal Lowe ended up taking up an offer to join the Mobil Holden Dealer Team.
Once he recovered from the injury to his arm, Kent Baigent ended up joining Graeme Bowkett and running a pair of Nissan Skyline DR30 Turbos with support from Nissan New Zealand from 1986 until 1989.

[Jesper OH]

Thank you brendonwood, for shedding some light on Kiwi matters. By the late 1980s Autosport followed the Nissan Mobil 500 series quite comprehensively by Autosport and with good reason, as the best locals squared up against visiting Australians, Europeans and the odd Japanese entry I believe too.

http://www.progcovers.com/motor/tsukuba870315.jpg
Starlets were mentioned a little earlier. Here's a programme cover with a mixed bag of Starlets of the older RWD KP61 and the newer FWD EP71, although none of these cars are Group A cars necessarily.

Jesper

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

The Maserati Biturbo and Alfa 75 Turbo was also affected by the size of intercooler size, but only when the Group A regulations were reviewed for the 1988 season, which must have been 3-4 years after the Metro/Bluebird cases.

Jesper

Now there's a moot point.....

Could we logically deduct that if both the Alfa and Maserati had less restrictions on the intercooler size like the Metro and Bluebird did to begin with (I confess I didn't know the Metro's intercooler was potentially a big help in it's cracking pace) that both Italian cars would've fared much better?

Could the 75 have been a real match for the M3?

[Herbert]

In the DTM Magazin you can find some interesting articles about the Group-A-days of the DTM. In 03/2008 there is an six page article about some of the forgotten cars of the DTM with some rare pictures of the Vöhringer-Ritmo, VW Golfs, the Toyota Corolla of a certain Hermann Tilke, the Mercedes 380 SLC of Jürgen Leininger, the Behrens-Nissan or the Mitsubishi Starion of Richard Friederich.

In issue 02/2008 there is an article about ACS and their Camaros. And Jesper, you can find some background information about the failure of 1988. In issue 06/2008 you can find an article about Kissling Motorsport and their self-built Volvo 240.

[Jesper OH]

Thank you for leading the attention to these articles, Herbert. Have been reading through old Rallye-Racing articles recently and got something for the RS500 thread.

Jesper

[Herbert]

Hi Jesper, I added something on the Sierra and Rover thread ...

[Jesper OH]

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.

http://www.racehistorie.nl/index_m.htm

Eddy Fresco seems to have been the driver of the Dutch Jaguar.

Jesper

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by KA

A nice Oulton Park paddock pic of the Goode Bluebird.
http://flickr.com/photos/16788879@N0...7611422894664/

The car returned to the BTCC in 1987 for a few races in the hands of Kevin Eaton, in an all-white livery. I should have a (very poor) 1987 pic of the car taken at Donington somewhere at home, but can't find it at the moment...

I have been giving the '87 BTCC season a close look recently and it seems Eaton was quite competiteve whenever he turned up, but also a fair share of retirements. Two class seconds, both at Donington and behind Frank Sytner, and three retirements being his results. But what was Eatons credentials actually, because I hadn't heard of him before I looked at the 1987 BTCC.

Jesper

[Jesper OH]

Very early in this thread the Spa 1982 and '83 Mercedes-Benz 450SLC was brought up by chunterer. Claude Bourgoignie seems to have been the mover behind that project, but it had a twin:
http://cvc.com.sapo.pt/images/1982/1...rentes%202.jpg
http://circuitoviladoconde.com.sapo.pt/1982.htm
Look for the Grupo A2 results and the driver Sande e Castro. There's no use to look ahead for future results, because by 1983 he was racing a Jaguar XJ-S!

Jesper

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

I have been giving the '87 BTCC season a close look recently and it seems Eaton was quite competiteve whenever he turned up, but also a fair share of retirements. Two class seconds, both at Donington and behind Frank Sytner, and three retirements being his results. But what was Eatons credentials actually, because I hadn't heard of him before I looked at the 1987 BTCC.

Jesper

Oh if only that car had been supported by Nissan Japan at the start of it's life in Graham Goode's hands 3 years earlier.......

Kevin Eaton was a club level modsaloon driver before and after his stint in the BTCC. He might originally have been either a rallycrosser or hot rodder, can't quite remember. He also ran what is believed to be the last TWR Rover Vitesse built in the late 80's/early 90's TWR 020, mentioned somewhere deep in that thread!!

[Gloves]

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

[Jesper OH]

..but still a beauty to watch

Here's links to Thomas Lindström and his Biturbo for the 1989 Swedish championship campaign:
http://www.teambild.se/arkiv/details...74&mode=search
http://www.teambild.se/arkiv/details...75&mode=search
http://www.teambild.se/arkiv/details...76&mode=search

Jesper

[KA]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Oh if only that car had been supported by Nissan Japan at the start of it's life in Graham Goode's hands 3 years earlier.......

Kevin Eaton was a club level modsaloon driver before and after his stint in the BTCC. He might originally have been either a rallycrosser or hot rodder, can't quite remember. He also ran what is believed to be the last TWR Rover Vitesse built in the late 80's/early 90's TWR 020, mentioned somewhere deep in that thread!!

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....