The cars that dominated competition. The machines than borke records and left their mark on motorsport history.
Lancia LC2: the Ferrari-powered Italian that almost embarrassed Porsche at Le Mans June 1984. Le Mans. Saturday afternoon, final qualifying session. Bob Wollek climbs into a prototype wearing Martini Racing colours, heads out onto the Sarthe, and pulls a lap of 3:17.11. Eleven seconds faster than the quickest Porsche 956 from Joest Racing. Eleven. Seconds. … Read more
Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA: The Most Successful European Touring Car in History Nobody Quite Names Correctly Two hundred and five kilograms. That’s the weight difference between a 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT — the kind you might have seen parked outside a Bologna café — and an Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA, the car this … Read more
Lola T70: the crash-test dummy that beat Porsche and Ford Watch the famous crash scene in Steve McQueen’s Le Mans one more time — the Gulf Porsche 917 that peels off the racing line, slaps the Armco, sheds bodywork and keeps bouncing down the straight like a pinball ball with a death wish, iconic, cinematic, … Read more
Toyota Celica Pikes Peak: The Dirt Record Nobody Will Ever Break Forty Seconds. On Dirt. With a Car Nobody Had Seen Before. And a New Zealander America Never Saw Coming. On June 30, 1994, Rod Millen arrived at the Pikes Peak start line with something the rest of the paddock stared at without quite knowing … Read more
Nissan R390 GT1: the race car Nissan had to fit with headlights and a number plate to be allowed to run at Le Mans If you were a manufacturer in the late nineties and you wanted to win Le Mans in the GT1 category — the one that actually won the race overall — you … Read more
Lancia Fulvia HF Coupé: the car that taught Lancia how to win championships Some cars win championships by brute force. They have more horsepower than their rivals, more displacement, more torque in the right places. They show up, run over everything, win. That’s one way to win. There’s another way. Cars that win by doing … Read more
Audi 90 quattro IMSA GTO: The Car They Changed the Rules to Stop Most race cars lose because something breaks, or because the driver lifts, or because the thing in front is simply quicker. The 1989 Audi 90 quattro IMSA GTO managed something rarer and far more telling. It lost a championship while being the … Read more
Maserati 250F: The Most Beautiful Car to Ever Win a War Denis Jenkinson, the great Motor Sport correspondent who rode shotgun with Stirling Moss to win the 1955 Mille Miglia, did not hand out praise cheaply. He had watched everything the 1950s had to offer. And of one particular afternoon at the Nürburgring he wrote … Read more
Ford Mustang GT3: the wild horse at Le Mans June 2024. Circuit de la Sarthe. Centennial of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Twenty-four cars line up on the LMGT3 grid. Porsche 911s. Ferrari 296s. Aston Martin Vantages. BMW M4s. McLaren Arturas. Corvette Z06s. Mercedes-AMG GTs. Lexus RC Fs. Mid-engine cars. Rear-engine cars. Mid-rear-engine cars. … Read more
Ferrari F40 LM and Competizione: Maranello’s Group B Debt, Paid Ten Years Late There are cars that arrive on time and cars that arrive late. The Ferrari F40 LM arrived late. It arrived three years after Henri Toivonen was killed in Corsica and the FIA killed Group B. It arrived two years after the road … Read more
The Ferrari that Ferrari didn’t build: the uncomfortable truth about the 333 SP Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further. When Ferrari came back to sports prototype racing in 1994 after twenty years of absolute silence, the car that restored their dignity wasn’t built in Maranello. It was built in Varano de’ … Read more
Maserati MC12: The Supercar That Forced the FIA to Invent Balance of Performance Top Gear lapped one. The Stig set a time of 1:18.9 — one tenth faster than the Ferrari Enzo. Clarkson called it twitchy, oversized, and “either a racer, a GT car, or a detuned Enzo in a fat suit.” He couldn’t quite … Read more
