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Burn your textbooks, question your elders, scrutinize the PR department. The 787B was the first car built entirely by Mazda to ever win the 24 Hours of Le Mans—but it wasn't the first rotary-powered car to do so. There were two other cars, with Wankel hearts, that sought and earned victory in France. The first was the Mazda 717C, in the 1983 Le Mans. The above, the Lola T616, is the second.
It goes like this: In 1983, the FIA created the C Junior class -- just like the Group C prototypes, but entirely restricted by fuel and weight to 55 liters and 700 kilograms, respectively. That year two 717Cs, powered by two-rotor 13B rotary engines, became the only cars to finish in the class: 717C #002, driven by a trio of Japanese drivers, finished first in class and 12th overall, while 717C #001, driven by a trio of British drivers, finished 18th. The other three teams -- British, French and Italian -- either failed to qualify, crashed out or blew their engines. Legend has it that the British team, including BTCC legend and Montego peddler Steve Soper, was so disappointed with the 717C's hairy handling characteristics -- with a 0.27 coefficient of drag, it eschewed stability for top speed—that they tried to break it on purpose, and walk away with a DNF.
Alas, when you try to break a car in anger, it usually responds by staying as unbroken as possible. Both teams finished the race thanks to utter reliability.
They even won an award for fuel efficiency.
A year later, the class was renamed C2. Mazda, having now figured out the black art of aerodynamics, evolved the prototype into the achingly pretty 727C, entering two examples in the 1984 Le Mans. Meanwhile Lola, with the help of BF Goodrich and Jim Busby Racing, evolved its groundbreaking T600, the first prototype with ground effects, into the T616. With a new and more conventional body, the T616 weighed just over 1,600 pounds. The 13B rotary produced 300 horsepower, could propel the T616 up to 200mph on the chicane-free Mulsanne Straight and was dead-on reliable: "That engine was absolutely guaranteed for 24 hours without a hitch," said Busby. "We went almost a full year without an engine failure."
Busby drove the T616s with a motley crew of international rogues: IMSA driver John O'Steen, 717C survivor Rick Knoop, Dutch F1 veteran Johan "Boy" Hayje, Mazda factory driver Yoshimi Katayama, and John Morton -- a man who needs no introduction.
John Morton, John O'Steen, and Mazda factory driver Yoshimi Katayama drove #68. It placed first in the C2 class, 10th overall.
And just like the hairy 717Cs, one of the rotary Lolas won the same class. This time, the other Group C2 cars actually finished. The Lolas even trounced the Mazdaspeed-supported 727Cs. No matter that the 727Cs had churned out laptimes nine seconds quicker in practice than the Lolas: Hewland gearbox issues befell the 727Cs. But the important part was, all four rotary engines finished the race.
Busby later bought the cars in 2003, with co-driver Rick Knoop, and restored them to vintage racing status. At one point, Bruce Canepa became the caretaker. But now, Russo and Steele will be selling both Le Mans finishers at its Monterey auction on August 14-16th, during Pebble Beach week. "Ready to go and steeped in racing history," says Russo and Steele, "the 'Twin Lolas' now stand ready for you to share the glory!"
Mazda has the honor of being the first Japanese engine at Le Mans, in 1973. Amidst a flurry of reliability problems, language barriers, and exploding tires, the Sigma Automotive MC73 didn't finish. "We went home to Japan with a bitter experience of international racing," said Takayoshi Ohashi, who was in charge of Mazda Auto Tokyo. "But we now knew where our weaknesses lay…it was an enlightening experience, which only served to reinforce our opinion of the difficulty of this race: We swore we'd be back!"
Good on them, and their vow to return. Six years later, Mazda became the only company with a rotary engine -- hell, the only Japanese company -- to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. By 1992, the plug was pulled with the MXR-01 during a wet, wild, Peugeot-dicing bout. If the rumors are true, and Mazda does bring back the rotary, then it deserves to hit up Le Mans again. If the Lola proves anything, it'll be riding high on a wonderful legacy.
