Manifold: Five of My Favourite Race Cars Ever Built, and the History Lessons Behind Them
- Danny Davies
- Nov 6, 2024
- 12 min read
Motorsport is, undoubtedly, one of the cornerstones of the automotive world, and the expansive amount of different disciplines, from Le Mans to the World Rally Championship, have each spawned some of the craziest and most fabulous cars of all time. Motorsport is where automotive boundaries are pushed to their absolute furthest, motivated solely by the simple ambition to be faster than anyone else - and in order to achieve this, some seriously special cars have been developed over time, often with extraordinary stories behind them.
In reality, this list could have easily been three times longer than it already is, such is the sheer amount of amazing cars to come out of motorsport, and it has been a painful process to decide upon which ones to write about. However - after some deliberation, here are five of my personal favourites, and the fascinating histories behind their existences.
1999 Porsche LMP 2000
To begin this list, I thought I would start with the car that inspired me to write this story in the first place - the 1999 Porsche LMP 2000, otherwise known internally as 9R3. Now, to be completely honest, I had no idea this car existed until recently - but, then again, not many other people did either. This is because the LMP 2000 never actually turned a wheel in anger during a race; rather it was a cancelled project that was shut down only two days after testing began in 1999, with Porsche's accountants deciding to reroute funding towards the development of the Cayenne (a decision that saved Porsche financially, so you can't exactly be mad about it). However, in a perfect world where the LMP 2000 would have been allowed to race, it could have had the potential to be something very special indeed.
The LMP 2000 was built to comply with the LMP 900 regulations introduced for the 68th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the year 2000. This meant that the LMP 2000 weighed under a tonne, while producing a rumoured 700bhp from a re-engineered version of the 3.5-litre V10 that Porsche developed for the Arrows Formula 1 team in the early 90s, only now bored out to 5.5-litres (fun fact - this engine formed the base for the 5.7-litre V10 that eventually found its way into the carbon rear subframe of my favourite ever car, the Porsche Carrera GT, so the 9R3 project at least left a legacy behind for itself). 3-time Le Mans winner Alan McNish was even lined up to drive it, alongside fellow driver Bob Wolleck - but, due to Porsche's financial troubles at the time, they never got the chance. And that's a shame, as the LMP 2000 had the potential to be incredibly competitive; it certainly would have given Audi a lot to think about during their period of dominance at La Sarthe during the early noughties.
Porsche only admitted to the LMP 2000's existence for the first time 6 years ago, where it was seen in public for the first time at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and, only last month, the LMP 2000 was wheeled out once again and given a blast by the same Alan McNish who was ready to drive it at Le Mans 25 years ago. Therefore, this very special car had to make the list, even though it technically never raced; but, my goodness, what could have been. Oh, and if you haven't already, do yourself a favour and watch the YouTube video above about McNish's reunion with the car, as it's absolutely brilliant.
2009 Brawn BGP 001
Moving on, then, towards what many consider to be the ultimate expression of motorsport - Formula 1. For almost 80 years, Formula 1 has been the most elite, technical, and glamorous form of the sport, and a diverse range of teams, some of which carry iconic names like Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Lotus to name but a few, have all sunk millions, if not billions, into the sport to try and win it all. Brawn wasn't one of them, which is what makes their BGP 001, and the extraordinary story behind it, so incredibly special.
Amidst the 2008 financial crisis, Honda, who had a team in Formula 1, decided to pull out of the sport due to the sheer cost involved. Ross Brawn, who had been the team principle of Ferrari during the years of Schumacher's dominance, had moved to Honda just before the announcement; he suddenly found himself out of work, as did a team of nearly 700 engineers and mechanics, as well as the two Honda drivers, Jenson Button and Reubens Barrichello. What happened next was scarcely believable - Brawn famously bought the team off Honda, who had already began to develop the 2009 car, for just £1; and, on a shoestring budget, he was able to put two Brawn BGP 001 cars, in their iconic white and florescent green liveries, on the grid for the 2009 season. Hundreds of jobs were saved, and Button and Barichello were retained as drivers for the team. In the run up to qualifying for the first race of the 2009 season in Melbourne, Brawn was seen as a hero by the rest of the grid for keeping the team alive, and there was a cheerful, contented atmosphere in the paddock after such a happy ending.
That soon dissipated when Button and Barichello blew the rest of the grid away to lock out the front row of the grid in qualifying. That air of cheerfulness and content quickly turned into pure astonishment; especially when Button won the race, with Barichello finishing right behind him in second. It then turned into downright suspicion when Button went on to win a record-equalling six of the opening seven races. The immense pace of the BGP 001 came from an ingenious 'double diffuser' design that was deemed legal through a loophole in the rules; once the other teams had adopted the same design, Brawn quickly lost their advantage. However, Jenson's unbelievable form at the start of the season proved enough in the end for him to win the 2009 Driver's World Championship with the BGP 001, against every set of odds imaginable. Brawn simultaneously secured the Constructor's Championship, too; a genuinely unbelievable story that almost seems impossible given the usual stratospheric budget required for the sport. Almost. After the 2009 season, the team was sold to Mercedes, Button went to McLaren and Barichello went to Williams; meaning Brawn GP left just as quickly as they had arrived. What was left behind, though, was simply the most extraordinary team story in F1's history, and one of the coolest race cars of all time.
1987 Sauber-Mercedes C9
The Group C era of sports car racing was possibly one of Motorsport's highest peaks. Introduced by the FIA in 1982, and lasting until 1983, Group C was based around a set of car requirements that included a minimum weight of 800kg, and a maximum fuel capacity of 100 litres, in order to limit the amount of fuel stops each team could make during a race. These new rules intended to force teams into developing more than just their engines to make the racing more competitive, as previous championships had essentially been dominated by whichever team's car could survive with the highest amount of boost. What resulted was an incredibly popular series that, at its peak, attracted nearly as many viewers as Formula 1, as well as several different manufacturers, including Porsche, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Lancia and Mercedes. Naturally, this also meant that some immense cars were created to compete - with my favourite being the mighty Sauber-Mercedes C9.
In truth, the new Group C regulations didn't really achieve their goal of making the racing more competitive, at least not initially; Porsche absolutely mopped the floor with their 956/962 program which, still to this day, is the most successful race car of all time - and another one of my favourites that could very easily have made this list, especially when resplendent in gorgeous Rothmans attire. However, once Porsche wrapped up the factory program in 1987, things got a bit more interesting. Jaguar won the World Sportscar Championship twice, Peugeot won it once, and in 1989 and 1990, Mercedes and Sauber dominated with their co-developed C9.
After a tough 1987 debut season, where the car only finished twice, and a significantly better 1988 season, the C9 won all but one race in the 1989 World Sportscar Championship, as well as the '89 edition of Le Mans, where it finished 1-2. The C9 also set one of the fastest speeds ever recorded at Le Mans (248mph, to be precise) during qualifying, which directly led to the introduction of chicanes on the Mulsanne Straight. The following year was just as good; Jaguar won Le Mans, but there was nothing the British company could do against the C9 in the long run, which won Mercedes their second championship in two years. The Porsche 962 was undoubtedly the more successful race car in hindsight; however, there is just something about the Merc that I have always loved; I love the way it looks, and I especially love the noise it makes - the C9 was one of the best sounding cars ever, with a thunderous 820bhp 5-litre twin-turbo V8 that shook the ground when it was idling, and destroyed eardrums when on the move. The C9 is such a cool thing, and alongside the 962, it's impossible to deny that the golden era of Group C served up some of the best race cars in the history of the sport.
1976 Ferrari 312T
Moving back over to Formula 1, and to a car that I was slightly apprehensive to include as it can be seen in two very different ways. On the one hand, the 1976 Ferrari 312T was the car that very nearly claimed the life of one of my biggest heroes, Niki Lauda, at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring Nordschleife during his ferocious battle with McLaren's James Hunt for that year's world championship title. But, on the other, this car can also be seen as a symbol of Niki's utterly superhuman recovery after his terrible accident, where he suffered major burns and smoke inhalation, to be back on the grid at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix just 42 days later. And, in that race, in front of the Tifosi at Ferrari's home race, Niki came home to finish a miraculous fourth place in the same 312T that had nearly killed him 6 weeks before, rounding off one of the most moving and miraculous stories in sporting history.
The 312T was Ferrari's challenger for the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship, which would prove to be a drag race between Lauda, racing for the Maranello team, and McLaren's charismatic James Hunt, that went right up until the final round in Japan where Hunt won by a single point. The season started well for Niki in his 500bhp, flat-twelve-powered air intake on wheels; he won four of the opening six rounds in the 312T, thanks to his usual methodical quality behind the wheel, as well as reliability issues for Hunt. There had, of course, been plenty of controversy; Hunt's McLaren had been disqualified from the Spanish Grand Prix for being 2mm too wide after he crossed the line in first, temporarily handing the victory to Niki. However, the decision was later overturned, providing him with valuable points against the Austrian. Hunt also won the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch to the delight of his home fans, but was again disqualified for a lap 1 infringement - a decision that came two months after the race had ended. As a result, the championship was looking like it was Niki's for the taking mid-way through the season; he was miles ahead of Hunt in second place due to his reliability issues and disqualifications. And then, the F1 circus fatefully arrived at the Nürburgring.
In a biblically wet race, that several of the drivers called to be postponed beforehand, Niki crashed his 312T - a mechanical fault is perhaps to blame, something that is still debated today - against the barriers, and the car burst into flames whilst being propelled back onto the circuit into the path of other cars. He was hit by the Surtees of American driver Brett Lunger who couldn't avoid him, and as a result Niki was trapped inside his burning Ferrari for 55 seconds. How he was able to survive, I will never know; but it's clear that his sensational recovery was solely down to his utterly inspirational mindset and personal drive to do anything required, no matter how painful, to get back into the seat of his Rosso Corsa 312T as quickly as possible. Of course, Hunt was able to close the gap in the championship during Niki's time out, before going on to win it at Suzuka after Lauda understandably retired due to yet more terrible weather conditions; but that really isn't the point. The point is that Niki was still there in the fight right up until the end, after an accident that would have caused 99% of other drivers to retire; a feat that only someone with Niki's rock-solid mentality and pragmatic outlook on life could hope to achieve. You only have to read some of his interviews from around the time of the accident, and in the years afterwards, to appreciate how much of an incredible human being he was - and the fact that he went on to win the World Championship the following year in 1977, and again in 1984, only makes his story all the more spectacular. Niki's 312T is, therefore, a very special race car - because of the story it's able to tell about the remarkable man who drove it.
1985 Audi Quattro S1 E2
The World Rally Championship is a gruelling, intense, dramatic, fast-paced, action-packed form of motorsport, and is, debatably, the one that requires the most amount of raw driving skill to succeed at. This was especially true during the mid 1980s, when the FIA introduced the craziest set of rules and regulations, or rather the lack of them, ever seen in the sport's history to create Group B: the most fierce, most dangerous motorsport series to ever exist.
Rallying as a sport had reached peak popularity and pretty much every manufacturer under the sun either already had a presence in the sport, or were planning one for the future, and the championship turned into an arms race between each competing team to build the lightest, most powerful, most ferocious car possible. Things, unsurprisingly, got out of control very quickly; a lack of restrictions on permitted technologies, and a loophole in the rules that meant smaller engine capacities could be counterbalanced by a lower permitted minimum weight, meant that the cars competing in the WRC weren't just the fastest rally cars ever, but pretty much the fastest cars ever, full stop. As a result of the rapidly escalating nature of the sport under these rules, which was unfortunately displayed by a series of fatal accidents in the 1986 season, Group B was banned by the FIA only four years after being introduced. From a safety perspective, it was probably the right decision, but to many this marked the end of the golden era of rallying. What did result from this period, though, were the craziest, most technologically advanced, and fastest rally cars of all time - with the greatest of all being the iconic 1985 Audi Quattro S1 E2.
In the years leading up to the Group B baptism of fire, Audi had completely revolutionised the world of rallying by introducing the all-wheel-drive Quattro in 1981. It immediately won everything, inspiring everyone (apart from a stray championship win for Lancia's rear-driven
037in 1983, which was the last time a non-four-wheel-drive car would ever win the WRC) to adopt the same technology. Quickly, as Group B began to get more competitive, and the cars got crazier, Audi lost the advantage the original version of the Quattro had afforded them, so the Ingolstadt team went back to the drawing board. What emerged from the Audi Team workshop was the fire-breathing Quattro S1 E2, which immediately became one of the most iconic and easily recognisable competition cars ever built thanks to it's dramatically shorter wheelbase than the standard quattro (320mm shorter, to be precise), in addition to the cartoonish spoilers and splitters that adorned the carbon-Kevlar body work. It's all-aluminium 2.1-litre inline five officially made 450 bhp, although the final factory cars of 1986 were rated at closer to 600 bhp, and produced an incredibly unique sound that has since become almost as iconic as the way the car looked; there really is nothing else that looks or sounds like a Group B Quattro. The driver line-up for the ultimate version of the Quattro was pretty special, too; names like Walter Rohrl, Michelle Mouton and Stig Blomqvist could each be found displayed inside the S1's side window at various points.
In the end, the S1 E2 was never able to replicate the success of the early pre-1985 Quattros, even despite the fact that three of the best drivers of all time each tried their hand at taming the four-ringed rocket ship; it only won one rally, the 1985 Rallye San Remo, at the hands of Mr. Rohrl, while the Group B era was instead dominated by the Peugeot Talbot team. Audi pulled out of the WRC in 1986 when Group B was ended, before the next evolution of the Quattro, the RS 002, was ever able to compete; instead turning to the 1987 edition of Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, where Walter Rohrl won outright with the S1 E2 once again. Despite the fact that it was never as successful as Audi would have intended, the crazy looks, the crazy sound, the star-studded driver line-up, and the immense footage that exists of this car being driven at full tilt in a manner that seems almost unbelievable to watch, all contributes to the impression that the Quattro S1 E2 is the ultimate expression of a rally car. It's simply one of the most outrageous and most iconic automobiles to ever exist, and for that reason, it will forever remain my favourite race car of all time.
I hope you enjoyed this article; if you did, please check out some of my other stories on Macchina Media, such as the ones below:
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