The five greatest Mazda race cars of all time

787B

What more can you say about the screaming, rotary-powered Mazda 787B that hasn’t already been said? In reality the 787B wasn’t that fast, but the 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours was so odd that it came out on top by two laps. But the fame of this brilliantly orange and green Group C racer comes less from the fact that it was for nearly 30 years the only Japanese winner of the world’s greatest motor race, and more in the sound it made while doing it. It was powered by an iconic 2.6-litre four-rotor engine which revved to unbelievably high levels, meaning the 787B absolutely screamed its way round La Sarthe to victory. There are many who would say the noise is just loud rather than enjoyable, but there’s no denying it’s impressive, and the legend of the 787B is so great that when offered the chance to drive any cars at the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard in 2015, Valentino Rossi jumped straight in the Mazda.

RX-7

We did try and choose a particular RX-7 for this segment. But it was just too tough a task. You see the RX-7 came in so many racing forms and every single one of them was awesome. So instead we’re nominating all of them. First there’s the Group A touring car racer, one of which has been seen several times at the Goodwood Members’ Meetings. This raced in the wonderful late-‘70s era of saloon car racing, a time when the Spa 24 was a touring car race. The little Mazda couldn’t keep up with its Ford rivals, but was still absolutely wonderful. Then there’s the frankly bonkers IMSA GTO car. A fire-breathing monster in which (if you search out an onboard) you can see the throttle cable working form inside the cabin. Did it win anything? Yes, and it even sat on class pole for the Daytona 24. Is it absolutely epic? Yes. Finally we can’t do this without mentioning the Group B car. Yep, the Group B rally RX-7. Not strictly a racing car, but still utterly awesome. A partly privately funded effort you can read about here, it didn’t manage to really get anywhere given Group B was banned shortly after its birth and that it was rear-wheel-drive only in an era of 4x4s. But it’s a rotary-powered Group B car, and for that it deserves a place in the hall of fame.

RT24-P

The name might not be familiar, but the shape should be. This is Mazda’s current (as of October 2019) challenger in the IMSA sportscar series in the US. If you’re not familiar with these DPi cars (Daytona Prototype International) they are based on the chassis of LMP2 racers, with manufacturers allowed to provide engines and aero modifications. The class has resulted in Cadillac, Acura, Mazda and Nissan running toe-to-toe at places including Sebring, Daytona and Road America and has been wildly successful. Mazda’s entry is run by Le Mans winners extraordinaire Joest Racing and is crewed by the likes of Oliver Jarvis and Harry Tinknell (no slouches). After a difficult couple of years this inline-four-powered racer has begun to come into its own late in 2019, winning three rounds in a row. They will be hoping for a proper title challenge in 2020, but the real reason this car is on the list is how it looks. It’s probably the closest thing we have to an actually produced version of the legendary (and legendarily flame-prone) Mazda Furai concept and, although it’s not full Furai awesome, it must be one of the best-looking racing cars around today.

MXR-01 

Now a personal favourite of mine, and sadly one with little to show for its awesomeness. The MXR-01 came about in the very dying embers of the Group C era. This was Mazda’s attack at the new 3.5-litre formula Group C, introduced ostensibly to foster greater collaboration with Formula 1 teams, but in reality the final death knell for the World Sportscar Championship. The MXR-01 is not powered by a rotary motor, but rather a wonderful 3.5-litre Judd V10. An engine that sounds equally, if not more, angry as the quad-rotors that came before it. The design is basically a Jaguar XJR-14, as the car was run by Tom Walkinshaw Racing, who had run the XJR-14 for Jaguar before they dropped out of sportscar racing in 1991. Following some slight modifications to the XJR-14, the MXR-01 was born, looking even more epic than the Jag. Sadly it came up against the incredible Peugeot 905 and its best result was a second in the Silverstone 500. It did briefly lead at Le Mans in 1992, but finished fourth behind the dominant Peugeots. It also finished second in the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship, the ‘90s version of the Asian Le Mans Series, but that was the end of it. After 1993, when the WSC and AJSPC were both cancelled, Mazda left Sportscar racing.

Mazda 3 TCR

We don’t know much about how the new TCR car will perform, but for us just looking at it has ensured it makes this list. The current Mazda 3 is a pretty epic looking machine to begin with, especially considering it’s ‘just’ a family hatch, so beefing it up into touring car form was guaranteed to make something pretty cool. It’s powered by a turbocharged, 350bhp four-cylinder engine and is sanctioned to race in any of the TCR series across the globe, which includes the World Touring Car Cup. So fingers crossed we should see some of these brilliant machines in action soon. In fact you can see this racing in the support race to the Daytona 24, which is just a matter of months away…

Photography courtesy of Motorsport Images and Mazda.