Bemani Toyota Supra

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by KA

The Fuji WTC round might have been the debut for the TOM'S cars( not sure if they did any JTCC rounds before that?), but a pair then went on to Macau, for Hoshino and Alan Jones- I think both were DNFs

Just to set the record straight The JTCC debut of Supra MA70 turbo was at Sugo on 09-19-1987 with Monolta colours. The interesting fact is that TOMs supra driven by Alan JONES / E. El? took first place in that race ,followed by Auttech M3. The debut win was actually somehow logical ,considering that Trampio Sierra got DNF at lap 24.
http://www.jaf.or.jp/CGI/msports/res...i?race_id=2041

Unfortunately until the end of the 1987 season TOMs Supra could take a single win against the Sierras at either Fuji ot Suzuka ,and the next year with the new regulations it was much more difficult regardless ot the TurboA evolution model...

The good news is that with the Debut Win of TOMs supra caught the attention of the Japanees media and they installed onBoard cameras in their cars. For us that means that we can enjoy some very rare Group A Supra action ,this is onBoard from TOMs supra ,driven by Geoff Lees from GB:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j3tO...z4xXEhAm0GS5BI


And here is the Car 36 (driven by Eje Elgh / Mauro Baldi) accident (based on the video I believe to be a steering lock or rear brakes issue):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcImD...layer_embedded

[KA]

Another pic of a rarely-seen car- the second MIL car for Vic Lee, Brands BTCC, 1988 (Coincidentally, seen in a scrap with another rarely seen car, Prodrive's 3rd M3, entered at several late-season rounds to support Sytner's championship hopes- Lionel Abbott at the helm here, though Will Hoy also drove it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hard_dr...57629435991339

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by KA

Another pic of a rarely-seen car- the second MIL car for Vic Lee, Brands BTCC, 1988 (Coincidentally, seen in a scrap with another rarely seen car, Prodrive's 3rd M3, entered at several late-season rounds to support Sytner's championship hopes- Lionel Abbott at the helm here, though Will Hoy also drove it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hard_dr...57629435991339

Lol ,I can't imagine how slow were the MIL cars in this configuration -> pre-Evolution homologation private turbo car on 1988 minimum weight rules...

Same year ,a rare (but short) fottage of the Bemani Toyota Supra from 24 Hour Race 1988:

Jump to 6:55

Jump to 4:00

Jump to 2:24

[Graham Clayton]

Originally Posted by terryobeirne

i have located the ex Gary Willmington GpA turbo Supra that raced in Australia 1991-93.

Terry,
The Willmington Supra raced during the 1989, 1990 and 1991 seasons. Here is a photo of the car during the 1990 Tooheys 1000:

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by Graham Clayton

Terry,
The Willmington Supra raced during the 1989, 1990 and 1991 seasons. Here is a photo of the car during the 1990 Tooheys 1000:

Was this car a private effort? It does not seem to be related to TTA (at least in livery) :

[KA]

Originally Posted by LordDigital

Was this car a private effort? It does not seem to be related to TTA (at least in livery) :

Definitely a private effort- From very vague memory, (though I'm sure one of our Aussie posters will be able to confirm) Willmington built it up from a standard road car shell?

[Graham Clayton]

Originally Posted by KA

Definitely a private effort- From very vague memory, (though I'm sure one of our Aussie posters will be able to confirm) Willmington built it up from a standard road car shell?

KA,

You are probably right - the XJS that Willmington drove in 1985-86 was also built from a road car shell, so he would have done the same thing with the Supra.

[LordDigital]

Lots of intresting pics of the two AUS Gr.A Supras on autopics.com.au



I see in these pics that Willmington Supra had the basic cage from A-5443 (FIA Homologation Book for MA70 Turbo). TRD/TTT Japan never used a cage in this configuration for their cars ,in fact the famous car number 32 (that won the JTCC round in Sugo on Sep-20-1987 ,in the hands of Alan Jones who happen to be Australian and ex Formula One champion) is the only car I've seen having single cross Bar ,but it was build in a very different way. Based on that I'm 100% sure that Willmington car was build from a road shell.

Actually after the 1.7 rule change of Jan 1st 1988 that I have the original FIA Errata for which completely destroyed any theoretical chances for the MA70 Supra to be competitive in Group A ,I'm very surprised to see an Evolution car with single crossed cage!

[hazee]

isnt the
FIA Homologation Book for MA70 Turbo is 5331 a and 5334 a.... do you have them?

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by hazee

isnt the
FIA Homologation Book for MA70 Turbo is 5331 a and 5334 a.... do you have them?

I've already posted 5334 - see post 72 from this thread). This scan is courtesy of Jose (josbeat with GroupA replica that has Quaife 6sped sequential dogbox). I'm not sure how complete it really is ,because I found many additional FIA/JAS pages on Japanese sites ,including variable stabailizer bars that are were not in Jose's scan. Never seen a single page of 5331...

P.S. Click on the "here" bellow:

Originally Posted by LordDigital

2.All Eurapean Racing MA70 Supras (Bemani Toyota Schweiz ,Shell-Toyota-MIL ,Bastos Toyota Team ,and one more I forgot) were not homologated in accordance to the original FIA/JAF SUPRA MA70 Homologation book (you can see it here if intrested). These cars also used DIFFERENT cages ,most noticible was the driver protection bars:

[T-Man]

Just found a small video from the 1990 Kyalami invitational DTM race.

Featured at the start of the race are 2 Bemani Supras. One is driven by Philipp Müller. I don't know the 2nd driver. Also should be mentioned that the cars are not in the same specs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVIWPEanjcY

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by T-Man

Just found a small video from the 1990 Kyalami invitational DTM race.

Featured at the start of the race are 2 Bemani Supras. One is driven by Philipp Müller. I don't know the 2nd driver. Also should be mentioned that the cars are not in the same specs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVIWPEanjcY

Nice find! It appears that the Bemani Supra driven by Phillipe Müller has a one peace rear wing?

On a side note ,I contacted Bemani true their broker and they confirmed to me that a total of 5 MA70 Supras were build. 2 were build with VINed chassis (converted road cars) and 3 were build from raw chassis. The car that they have now for sale is Bemani #002 build from a raw chassis.

[Graham Clayton]

Here is an interesting photo of some Group A Supras:



It looks like Japan, so which teams in the All-Japan Touring Car Championship ran Supras? The car on the right has the same Bijo livery as the two cars in the foreground, but is numbered #8, compared to the #36 and #37 of the other cars. One would expect it to be numbered #38.

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by Graham Clayton

Here is an interesting photo of some Group A Supras:



It looks like Japan, so which teams in the All-Japan Touring Car Championship ran Supras? The car on the right has the same Bijo livery as the two cars in the foreground, but is numbered #8, compared to the #36 and #37 of the other cars. One would expect it to be numbered #38.

I have a higher resolution version of this picture somewhere ,but based on history it is easy to tell that this is 1989 season of All-Japan Touring Car Championship ,becouse this is the only year when TTT (aka TOM's) ran their Supras in blue livery with BIJO. For next year they switched to same livery but with Fujitsu Ten .

Besides TTT there was a second team in Japan which was SARD - they ran their cars in 87 and 88 ,but they were even less competitive than TTT and never build an evolution car (aka 3pc rear wing).

Last but not least the foreground car is Corolla AE92 ,the very same car that later this year finished third in its class on SPA24h.

Back on topic ,recently and article have surfaced called "The Toyota Celica and Supra in Touring Car Racing" writen by Francisco Cunha. The article is based mostly on the book “Celica & Supra" by Brian Long and it contains a lot organized info on Group A Supras - it could've been a little more techical with more pictures but it still pretty good:
http://touringcarracing.net/Media/Toyota%20Celica.pdf

[KA]

Just digging this out of the archive, as a Swiss classic car dealer currently has one of the Bemani cars on offer:

http://www.lutziger-classiccars.ch/t...11isYoeAQ.aspx

[LordDigital]

Originally Posted by KA

Just digging this out of the archive, as a Swiss classic car dealer currently has one of the Bemani cars on offer:

http://www.lutziger-classiccars.ch/t...11isYoeAQ.aspx

Thanks for posting Kyle,

This appears to be Chassis 004 or 005 which is full DTM spec (engine and roll cage).

Price appears to be quite high at first ,but considering that it's sister car that was for sale 2 years ago also in Switzerland by Ulrich Hosner (Picz of it here) with ETTC chassis and cage ,but hill climb engine and no documentation of any sort had asking price of $50 000 - the $100 000k for authentic DTM spec car may be reasonable.

It is interesting to see so may pictures - I knew that DTM cage was different than the ETTC cage ,but not in so many ways. Bemani had a lot of funds from the campaign sponsor which I thought was Emil Frey Racing - they even engraved their name in the uprights ,all the arms appear to not be Group.A homologated parts ,but I guess for DTM they were not requred to be.

It is intresting to see that they did not use any of the Toyota factory bracing on the rear subframe ,which is very surprising as Toyota went true to the trouble of specifically homologating them in early 1988.

Crazy to see how authentic this DTM car really is ,it even has what appears to be the original seat ,I would think twice before using it to load the car on a trailer not to mention driving it on a track With a little work to get the ITB AirBox back and some other small details this can be exactly the same as what it was back in the days...

[LordDigital]

This may be rare.

Old publication showing Classification of the 1992 Swiss Touring Car Championships at Varano ,Italy.

It shows Bemani Toyota Supras winning in Group A 3000 class with N/A MA70 and "Plus 3000" with Turbo MA70:


For more info and pictures ,come join us at the Bemani Toyota MK3 Group A facebook group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/232176606842887/