Filed under: Motorsports, Time Warp, Videos, Mazda
NIght Watch: The sights and sounds of the Mazda 787B
Click Image for photo gallery. Follow the jump for video.
The Mazda 787B's victory at the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans represents the only win for a Japanese manufacturer at the fabled endurance race, and thanks to the car's 2.6-liter R26B 4-rotor powerplant, it's also the only time a car has done so with a non-piston engine. In addition to being an important car because of what it accomplished for Mazda, it also happens to be one of the most fantastic-sounding racing cars ever.
In the video we've embedded after the jump, you'll see Kenichi Tanabe, editor of Japan's Car Graphic magazine, put the Le mans-winning #55 car through its paces at Mazda's Miyoshi Proving Ground in Hiroshima. The footage is great, but it's the audio that'll give you goosebumps. Thankfully, the only soundtrack is the wail of the R26B. No commenters yapping. No stupid music. Just the car. It's bliss.
If you'll excuse us, we have to go play Gran Turismo 4 now.
[Source: YouTube]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Phillip 9:33PM (5/19/2007)
b-e-a-utiful.
And I agree, fire up the PS2, GT4 calls
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Ty 9:40PM (5/19/2007)
One of my all time favorite videos, the sound is orgasmic.
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Uncle Jed 9:59PM (5/19/2007)
Sugoi, indeed... Oh, to see a vintage race between this and a Matra V12... two of the best sounding screamers in motorsports history.
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FezMan88 10:12PM (5/19/2007)
Oh.
My.
God.
Why arent all Le Mans cars sounding like this?
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chuck goolsbee 10:18PM (5/19/2007)
That. Was. Wonderful.
Thank you Alex for the commentary about letting the car speak for itself. There is nothing so annoying to the true "car guy" to have that wonderful music of the engine drowned out by lame music, or some moron blathering on about this or that. A recent Fifth Gear episode had what is likely the best sounding machine of the post-war era, the uncorked XK engine of a Le Mans winning Jaguar D-type, and the completely blew it by an underlay of swelling music and an overlay of some guy blathering about the car.
I highly recommend the old "Victory By Design" shows (back before Speed became "NASCARTV") where they REALLY did an awesome job of letting the cars do the talking.
--chuck
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Red LIne Tire 10:26PM (5/19/2007)
Oh yea! I still like the opening sequence of "Le Mans" better for hair-raising sounds, but this is pretty darn' good too...
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Will 10:36PM (5/19/2007)
It's strange that a two-rotor 13B doesn't sound good at all, but stick two of them together in a Le Mans car and it puts a Ferrari V12 to shame.
The 787B really does sound phenomenal. I wish I had an audio clip of it doing a full lap of Le Mans- I would put it on repeat for an hour, burn it to a CD and play it while I drove.
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John P. 10:43PM (5/19/2007)
That is a great sounding car, but I like even more the sound of the V12 Jags that raced in IMSA GTP, and Lemans around that same era or slightly before.
It warms my heart to know Mazda could do what Nissan and Toyota have never done. Won the greatest road race in the world. Awesome.
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Will 10:44PM (5/19/2007)
Also, that second-to last gallery photo is pretty cool. A high-res shot with the 787B, what must be a concept RX-8, and way in the background an RX-7 that looks like a '99 Spirit R.
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Matt 11:10PM (5/19/2007)
wow!
oh and I wonder was the camera vehicle was...
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Nick 11:14PM (5/19/2007)
It's too bad the GT4 version of the 787 sounds like complete shit compared to the real thing, though that can be said for pretty much every single car in that game.
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dustin 11:23PM (5/19/2007)
#11 do you have dolby surround sound?
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David S. 11:25PM (5/19/2007)
I honestly had never heard the 787B outside of the GT series before. I knew about it, I'd read about it, but I'd never seen the car "on film".
++++'s to Alex for making my night.
I have my doctor's number on speed dial in case this erection lasts longer than 4 hours.
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why not the LS2LS7? 11:30PM (5/19/2007)
Sounds good. It's a bit flat when listening to it alongside. It's great when driving by.
The car sounds good in GT4, but not that good. The real problem with the 787B in GT4? It's a 5-speed. As such, you have to adjust the gearbox for every track you go to in order to get the right tradeoff of high speeds and acceleration. In 6 and 7 (one JGTC Supra has 7 gears) speed cars it isn't so critical.
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Carguy 11:44PM (5/19/2007)
John P,
When I was at Sebring in the late 80's, the best sounding cars to me were not the Jag V-12's...they were quite quiet and tough to hear over the other cars. No, the best sounding cars to me were the RX-7 GTO's, which were also 4 rotor rotaries. I actually started attending IMSA races to watch the Nissan and Jaguar GTP cars, but ended up always watching the GTO's just because that unreal sound coming from the RX-7's. In the pits, I remember that they had practically no flywheel, just braapa! braapa! accompanying an ungodly tranny rattle. Wow, great days...
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Juan 12:21AM (5/20/2007)
Detuned versions of this motor should be placed in consumer-grade Mazdas, just so we can hear this sound every day.
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John P 12:58AM (5/20/2007)
Carguy:
Are you sure you weren't hearing the later v6 turbo jags? I went to Watkins Glen for many many years in the 80's when the V12 Jags were racing and their sound was unmistakible. Rose above all, including the Mazdas/porche's/nissan's etc,..
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Vinny 1:03AM (5/20/2007)
just left me smiling ear to ear :)..... atleast no diesels in F1 please
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edd 2:05AM (5/20/2007)
sounds like my neighbor's civic
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Fred Goss 2:27AM (5/20/2007)
Absolutely beautiful. And victory by design was a great show, it was on that show that I first heard a race ferrari, the 333sp, and fell in love with the sound.
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