Retro cars invade the newest of motorsports
Retro cars invade the newest of motorsports, and why they’re closer to the golden racing days of old than you might think.
In a time when so many once-thrilling racing disciplines now follow highly restrictive control formulas, the relatively new sport of Time-Attack breaks the mold and allows entrants a little more ambiguity when it comes to developing a competitive car. The result is a field of extreme machines reminiscent of a cross between Group B rally and the golden age of Cam-Am. Of course there are classes that each must adhere to, however these tend to focus and aero and substructure.
The idea of Time Attack is to run a flying lap faster than the rest of the field, essentially it’s a sport built around qualifying and whilst that might not be as exciting as door-to-door racing, some of the retro-cars that entrants have built for the purpose, certainly are.
These are our three favorites:
3. Lotus Espirit – KRB
Exposed rivets and raw sheet metal bring back memories of a time when going fast was all that mattered, and beauty rose as a byproduct of function. Low, fast, and crude, the KRB built Lotus Esprit is actually an ’84 Tiga C2 Prototype which features an Audi-sourced 4.2L quad cam V8 complete with twin turbos, generating around 900hp at the crank.
2. Metro 6R4 – 6R4.com
With tubular everything, classic-rally style aero and an original 2.8L V6 6R4 engine sporting twin turbochargers for a not-so-original 500 horsepower, Mark Pollard’s Metro 6R4 is truly bonkers! Word is that the engine is capable of increasing it’s power by a further 50% with increased boost pressure in “kill mode” – now doesn’t that just remind you of the turbo-era of yesteryear?
1. Audi Quattro – KRB
It’s no secret that here at Motorsport Retro we’ve a huge soft spot for the Audi S1, so you can only imagine our delight when we discovered KRB’s incredible re-interpretation of what a flat-out circuit incarnation of one may have looked like. It wears a body straight out of our wildest Group B dreams, and the fact that it sports a whopping 1061hp doesn’t hurt either! This is without a doubt, the coolest retro Time-Attack car anyone has built yet.
Watch it in action here, and pay special attention to how incredibly quickly it puts on speed just beyond the three-minute mark:
Photos credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28091462@N03/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrianfrst/
