The Group C Prototype era was one of the most significant in the history of sports car racing, and also, the excesses of it, led to it's eventual demise. Join me, as we look back at a golden age in sports car racing.
Author: the braking zone
International racing fan for over 20 years. I follow Formula One, Indycars, sports cars, touring cars and other varied forms of racing within and outside the U.S. I am a recent college graduate and have been following the world of car racing since childhood.
A couple very brief videos of the Aston Martin Nimrod in action. This car raced in Group C between 1982 and ’84 if memory serves me right. Here is one video of the Nimrod doing demo laps at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, England, during the Aston Martin centenary celebration, from 2013 or so.
Here too, is a brief video of the Nimrod, but the beast is asleep. It is being rolled into position for display at the Aston Martin celebration at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, alongside it’s predecessors and successors including a DBR1 which won at the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a modern, FIA World Endurance Championship, LM GTE Aston Martin Vantage.
This video is about a quite unknown Group C prototype called Sthemo SM which raced in the Group C2 class (also called Group C Junior) during 1984 and 1985. The car is powered by a BMW M88 3.5-litre straight-6 engine which is the exact same engine we can find in the famous BMW M1 ProCar. Listen to that engine screaming around Spa-Francorchams circuit during the 2017 Spa Classic racing weekend!
Another one from 19Bozzy92. This is the 1985 Lancia LC2 Group C car.
This video is about a 1985 Lancia LC2 (chassis 0007) I saw during the Group C Racing series at the 2015 Coppa Intereuropa at Monza Circuit. The car is powered by a Ferrari/Abarth 3.0 litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine which was able to produce more than 800hp in qualifying trim reacing a near 1:1 power-to-weight ratio (the car weighs only 850 kgs).
Camcorder: Canon Legria HF G30 + Canon DM-100 Microphone
Event: Coppa Intereuropa 2015
Where: Autodromo di Monza, Italy
From 19Bozzy92, this is a favorite Group C car of yours truly. One of the versions has been shared, that raced later on. But, this was the first Sauber Mercedes Group C car, with it’s thunderous 5.0 liter turbocharged V8, and it’s gorgeous Yves Saint Laurent Kouros cologne livery.
The Sauber C8 was the first prototype of the Swiss company built in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz and introduced in 1985 for the 24h Le Mans race. For 1986 two more chassis were built and raced for a full season of the World Sportscar Championship under the Kouros Racing Team name. It was able to achieve a victory with drivers Henri Pescarolo and Mike Thackwell at the 1986 1000km of Nürburgring.
The car is powered by a Mercedes M117 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine able to produce around 700 hp and 800 Nm of torque and reaching a top speed of 370 km/h. Watch and hear it in action during the 2019 Monza Historic racing weekend by Peter Auto.
Before Sauber heeded the command of “you need to bring some more power”, with their thunderous Mercedes V8 powered monsters like the C8 and C9, they had this gem of a Group C car, using BMW power. This is the SHS C6, from the first year of Group C, back in 1982.
During the 2017 Vernasca Silver Flag trackday at Varano de’ Melegari I recorded this Sauber SHS C6 prototype or also called Sehcar SH C6. The car was engineered by Seger & Hoffman (hence the SHS designation) in order to race in the World Endurance Championship and in the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft as a Group C prototype in 1982.
At first it was powered by a Ford DFL 3.9-litre V8 engine but due to a lot of troubles at the beginning of the season and some unsatisfactory results at the end of 1982 Sauber decided that the SHS C6 needed improvement with the new C7. The two SHS C6 chassis were retired. In 1983 Group C was split into two halfs with the lower class called Group C Junior (or Group C2) for less wealthy private teams so a few years later in 1985 one of the two Sauber C6 was entered and raced by a French racer who also installed on his C6 a BMW M88 3.5-litre straight-6 engine.
The one you see in this video has undergone another engine change and it’s now powered by a cheap N/A V6 engine that still allow the car to be enjoyed during track days.
Read more about the 1982 Sauber’s filming, in the video description on 19Bozzy92’s channel.
A Group C2 class car, the 1988 Gebhardt C88 with it’s Audi 5 cylinder turbo motor, the same one used in the legendary Quattro Group B rally car.
A new addition to the Group C racing championship is this Gebhardt C88.
It’s been freshly restored by GEBHARDT Motorsport and has the engine from an Audi Quattro rallycar.
Unfortunately they still had some issues during this first race weekend, so I don’t have that much footage of it on track.
Event: Monza Historic
Race series: Group C racing
Track: Monza
Date: 20-22 september 2019
Driver: Michael Herich (GER)
Filmed with Canon Legria HF G40 + DM-100 microphone
Are you ready? Can you handle, a double whammy of the brutal, thunderous Sauber Mercedes C11? Here you go. Round two, coming up, now.
The Mercedes-Benz C11 was a Group C prototype race car introduced in 1989/90 for the World Sportscar Championship. Built by Sauber as a Sauber C9 successor, it was given the name C11, instead of C10, due to the difficult pronunciation of C10 in German, with C and 10 being pronounced nearly identically. With the C11 it was the first time that Mercedes Benz chose to put their name on the car, instead of simply using Sauber.
The car in the video is chassis 89.C11.00 and it was built in late summer 1989 for the 1990 WSPC racing season. But as soon as the car was completed the FIA changed the technical regulations for the 1990 season which means the car would have needed other modifications in order to respect the new rules. Rather than modify this chassis, Sauber decided to use it as the prototype C11 test car.
89.C11.00 was used at 10 tests with all the official factory drivers driving it at some point (Mario Baldi, Michael Schumacher, Jochen Mass, Jean Louis Schlesser, Heinz H. Frentzen, Karl Wendlinger). It was never raced, all the major development work on aerodynamics and general chassis set up for the C11 programme was carried out with this car.
The Sauber – Mercedes C11 is moved by a M119 5.0L twin-turbo V8 engine which was able to produce 750 bhp at 7000 rpm and 800 Nm of torque at 3500 rpm with a top speed of 400 km/h.
Watch and hear it screaming around Spa-Francorchamps circuit during the 2017 Spa Classic racing weekend!
From Belgian-Motorsport on YouTube, the fabulous, the magnificent Sauber C11, formerly driven by a man who would become a motor racing legend, before his days in Formula 1. This Sauber C11 Mercedes was piloted by none other than seven-time Formula 1 World Champion, Michael Schumacher.
Engine: Mercedes M119 V8 / 2 KKK Turbos / 4973 cc / 303.5 cu in
Power: 730 bhp / 545 kw @ 7000 rpm
Torque: 820 nm / 605 ft lbs @ 3500 rpm
Weight: 905 kg / 1995.2 lbs
Top speed: 400 km/h / 249 mph
Event: Monza Historic
Race series: Group C racing
Track: Monza
Date: 20-22 september 2019
Driven by Kriton Lendoudis (GRC). He qualified 3rd and finished race 1 in 7th place.
He won the second race.
The rest of the video’s description will tell you how to follow Belgian-Motorsport.
From Petrolicious, a story about the last great success of the Group C era, the car that ultimately led to the demise of the championship and the whole category, in the early 1990s, a car you have seen in some recent posts, the Peugeot 905.
Group C Sports Cars, the thunder of the '80s 