Goodwood Members Meeting - March 29/30 2014
A very rare Toyota Group C car took part in last weekends Goodwood historic race meeting.
This is the Toyota 87C, as raced in the All Japanese Prototype Championship and in the 24 hours of Le Mans. Its Le Mans line up of drivers included ex-F1 World Champion Alan Jones and Top Gear's Tiff Needell. The original 8 valve 4T-GT engine of Group B rally origin was replaced by the 503E 2.1 litre 16 valve race engine. The performance improvement from the new engine resulted in the 87C winning the second race in the All Japanese Prototype Championship. It qualified fairly well on Le Mans but the cars were struck with bad luck, as the first car stopped with a dead engine after just 33 minutes of racing the other car retired at 8.30 pm after being in the pits twice with major engine problems. Toyota had to run the little 2.1 litre engine at high levels of boost to match the performance of the 3.2 litre twin turbo Porsche 962 on the high speed Le Mans circuit so this was probably responsible for the premature engine failure.
This is the only known example of a Toyota Group C car in private hands. Kent Abrahamson acquired the car around 18 months ago when the car was still in its STP colours. It's now been restored and repainted in the original 1987 Le Mans 24 Hours colours. The car was driven in a high speed demo at Goodwood by ex-IRL and Indy 500 winner Kenny Brack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjYM9tNWEBs
Specifications
Engine
Configuration: 503E Straight 4
Location: Mid, longitudinally mounted
Displacement: 2.14 litre / 130.6 cu in
Fuel Feed: Nippondenso Fuel Injection
Aspiration: Toyota CT26R Turbo
Power: 560bhp / 418 KW
Drivetrain
Gearbox: March 86T 5 speed Manual
Drive: Rear wheel drive
Dimensions
Weight: 902 kgs / 1988.6 lbs
Performance figures
Power to weight: 0.62 bhp / kg
Top Speed: 309 km/h (192 mph)
