Postcard from Sussex: Mazda Memories

July 31, 2015
Story By
John Brooks

Goodwood Festival of Speed 2015 Picture by: Simon Hildrew 07970 808510 www.simonhildrew.com

The Goodwood Festival of Speed has grown in importance within the automotive world like an acorn that transforms over time to a mighty oak. The 2015 edition continued this trend as Lord March and his celebration of the car enjoyed another sellout weekend under clear blue skies. For this year the featured marque was Mazda and it was their proud motorsport heritage that formed the inspiration for the traditional statue situated as ever in front of Goodwood House.

Composed of 418 steel beams that twisted and turned into the sky, displaying the Mazda 787B that took victory in the 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours, the only Japanese manufacturer to have done so. Alongside the famous racer was the Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo, created for PlayStation's Gran Turismo 6.

Mazda are rightly proud of their Le Mans winning car, with its iconic Renown livery which is almost as loud as the 2.6 litre Quad-Rotor engine, once heard, never forgotten...

The 787B is a big hit with petrol heads of all ages, even in a crowd as discriminating as that to be found at the Festival of Speed.

It was not all success for Mazda racing's rotaries back in that era, the RX-792P was somewhat undercooked during its début season in 1992. Massive changes to the IMSA rules and the cessation of the other major endurance competitions in 1993 left Mazda with nowhere to go and they cancelled the program without giving the car a chance to redeem itself.

The 787B was just one of a number of rotary-engined racers that dated back to the 80's and the heyday of Group C endurance racing on show at Goodwood.

Mazda's racers were given pride of place on the lawn in front of Goodwood House.

One of the Mazdas did make the headlines in the UK press, sadly for all the wrong reasons. Senji Hoshino managed to bury his 767B into the straw bales while giving it some stick on the hill climb course, causing a fair amount of damage to the car and a little embarrassment to himself.

It was not all Mazda racing prototypes at Goodwood, the Mazda MX-5 was also rightly an integral part of the show, as is fitting for a sports car that truly represents traditional values of the breed. This little jewel of a car has had a career lasting more than 25 years, with the millionth example of the breed due for production in 2016. Constant refinement and attention to detail plus adhering to the original mission statement have resulted in the MX-5 being able to boast that it is the world's best-selling sports car.

Also raising smoke from the unfortunate Nitto NTO5 tires was "Mad Mike" Whiddett in his RX-7, demonstrating the drifter's art to the appreciative masses.

Mazda's Touring Car legends were well represented with the RX-7 that took Tom Walkinshaw and Pierre Dieudonné to victory in the 1981 Spa 24 Hours.

Mazda's "March to a Different Drum" approach has brought them a loyal following for their cars, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed we witnessed the evidence of the successes that such an approach accumulated over nearly 100 years, we look forward to the next chapter. Photography copyright and courtesy of Simon Hildrew

Postcard from Sussex: Mazda Memories

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