What If Mazda Took Their Le Mans Winning 787B To The Nordschleife?

Ahhh, the Mazda 787B, a real marmite car. Loved for being a winner, for being different and screaming its way into the hearts of endurance racing fans around the world. Hated by others for being one of the slowest cars to ever win Le Mans. Built in an era when mechanical problems were expected and normal, the Mazda rewrote the rulebook on how to win Le Mans.

Whether you like it or loathe it, the 787B is an icon in endurance racing, and for very good reason. Running a 4-rotor rotary engine, you certainly couldn’t mistake it for any other car as it screamed its way towards you with its 700 hp. There probably hasn’t been a more recognisable or more piercing sound in motorsport. Combine that with the striking orange and green livery, along with being the only Japanese manufacturer to have won Le Mans and you have the recipe for a fan favourite.

As I touched on, the 787B was certainly not known for its speed. Indeed, it qualified some 12 seconds off pole and was 7 seconds off the fastest lap of the race. However, that was an exception to the norm that year. It was only the Mercedes that was significantly quicker on raw performance come the 24 itself. With Jaguar using the much slower XJR-12 for the race, rather than the fast-but-fragile XJR-14 and the new Peugeot 905 proving fiery and unreliable, the door was very much open for Mazda to produce something extraordinary.

Whilst the 787B proved to be woefully off the pace during the rest of the 1991 season, winning Le Mans can never be taken away. You can win all the championships you want in endurance racing, but it’s the individual events that grab the headlines. Whether it’s Daytona, Sebring, Nurburgring or Le Mans, Mazda will forever be among a list of illustrious winners of one of the great races in motorsport.

So what’s it like trying to drag it around the Nordschleife? For one, the feeling of sitting in one of my favourite cars of all time is quite surreal, and that’s before you even touch the throttle pedal. Then you start bringing it up to speed. I actually can’t help but laugh to myself. Here I am, in VR sitting in the cockpit of a 787B as the engine starts to rev more, bring that iconic sound to the forefront of all my sense.

Driving this car is an event at the best of times, but at the Nordschleife, with all its dips and rises, combined with all those medium speed and fast corners? It’s both heaven and hell. The car doesn’t grip very well, it needs to be high in the rev range, it doesn’t brake very well and it oversteers at corner exit. That isn’t all. It’s low to the ground and stiffly sprung, meaning extreme accuracy is required, or you’ll be making a dent in a barrier somewhere. Oh yeah, it’s also an H-pattern!

Again, this car may not be the fastest car you’ve ever seen, but it’s fast enough. It clearly has some grip, but not a huge amount. It moves around, but you can deal with it. The sound makes you feel like you’re going so much faster than you actually are. It’s just so alive and it really gets the adrenaline flowing. Love it or hate it, this is what motorsport is about. Something different, something recognisable, something iconic.

YouTube

Jimmy Broadbent

I like to make videos. Simple as that.