When Mazda was still riding the rotary wave, the Japanese outfit also used to race on a professional level. And as fate would have it, Mazda is the only Japanese automaker to have won the hardest endurance race of them all: the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Designed by Nigel Stroud and piloted to victory at the 1991 edition of Le Mans, the 767B is the stuff of legend. Only three 767B-spec cars were built, the pictured one being chassis 767B-003. And as you might have noticed from the headline of this story, the pictured 787B will soon be auctioned off.
Bearer of lot number 000, Gooding & Company will try to find a new owner to this 1989 Mazda 767B at the Amelia Island 2017 auction. Its biggest success on the track comes in the form of a well-deserved victory in the GTP class at the 1990 24 Hours of Le Mans. Its last race was the 1990 edition of the Fuji 1000 Km, where 767B-003 finished sixth overall and first in the GTP class.
The pre-auction estimate on this blast form the past is $1.8 to $2.4 million, but chances are the upper limit will be exceeded if the champagne is free and bidding gets wild. After it had ended its career as a Mazdaspeed works racer, 767B-003 was restored to its 1990 specification. Its most recent outings were at the 2014 Spa Classic and the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
I know what’s on your mind right now, but thankfully no; this fellow here isn’t the 767B that crashed headfirst into the hay bales at Goodwood last year. The belly of the best is a 2.6-liter 4-rotor Wankel engine with 600 horsepower on thereabout on tap. Other than the car itself, the sale also includes the 1989 Le Mans body shell, as well as a number of spare gearboxes and engines.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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