Tag Archives: GT Legends

Race Spec Conversion – Ferrari F40 #80856

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The Ferrari F40 was built as a technical tour de force to celebrate Ferrari’s first 40 years of achievement in a single model intended purely for the road.

Ferrari F40, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

By 1989 an IMSA GTO LM version had been built which had no factory backing, despite this Jean Alesi, and fellow Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Jacques Laffite, Jean-Louis Schlesser, Olivier Grouillard, Michel Ferté, American Hurley Haywood and Belgian Eric van de Poele would all have a go challenging the dominant factory Audi 90’s, but could do no better than record a string of second and third places up until the end of 1990.

Ferrari F40, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

Today’s featured car started life as a 1989 road car, chassis #80856, that had been involved in some sort of accident before Robin Smith’s Simpson Engineering took the car on and converted it into a racer.

Ferrari F40, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The long list of modifications includes, but is not limited to; installation of a roll cage for safety and additional stiffness, new competition spec fabricated and rose jointed suspension and uprights, adjustable anti roll bars, air jacks and competition spec brakes with balance adjustment.

Ferrari F40, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The power output is said to be 790hp aided by engine modifications that included fitting Group C Lancia LC2 spec heads and cams.

The exact competition history of this vehicle on the internet appears to be a little clouded by Simpson Engineering’s F550 V12 powered Ferrari F40, but from what I gather this car has been raced in the British GT, Britcar and Pirelli Ferrari Open Series over the last 10 years with the primary drivers appearing to be Andrew Mott and Jacopo “son of Stingbrace” Sebastiani among others.

As of mid November this car has been up for sale, if you are in the market for such a wonderful vehicle you will find contact details on this linked web page, usual disclaimers and “Caveat Emptor” advice applies.

Thanks for joining me on this “Race Spec Conversion” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at another Bristol powered special. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Brand Presence – Dodge Viper GTS-R #C30

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In order to promote it’s new for 1995 Dodge Viper GTS Coupé and compete in the plethora of GT Championships across the globe in the late 1990’s Chrysler sanctioned the construction of GTS-R race variant to be overseen and maintained by the French Race and Engineering team Oreca.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The bare chassis for the Oreca built GTS-R’s were fabricated by the British company Reynard who had a long established reputation for building open wheelers from Formula Ford all the way up to Indycars. There reputation was enhanced by the fact that every time they entered a new formula they won first time out.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

The 8 litre / 488 cui V10 motors were lightly modified to improve output and reliability, in all 5 prototypes and a further 52 Chrylser Viper GTS-R’s were built between 1996 and 2005.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

In the USA the cars were run as Dodge Vipers while in Europe where the Dodge brand did not have any official market presence the cars were run as Chrysler Vipers, with the exception being at the 2007 Nurburgring 24 Hour race where ’99,’01 and ’02 winners Zakspeed entered their Viper, which finished second, as a Dodge to mark the arrival of the Dodge brand in Europe.

Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Florent Moulin, GT Legends, Silverstone Classic,

Today’s featured car chassis #C30, seen at Silverstone in the hands of Classic car dealer Florent Moulin, appears to have been built in for the 2000 season and raced by Viper Team Oreca in the US, as a Dodge and Europe, as a Chrysler, by Jean-Philippe Belloc, Anthony Beltoise, Ni Amorim, Tommy Archer, David Donohue, Marc Duez, Patrick Huisman and Boris Derichebourg.

#C30’s best result was in the 2000 Grand Prix of Sanoma where Tommy Archer and David Donohue recorded a class win and 8th overall in the Dodge branded racer.

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