Group A Ford Mustang ETC/DTM

[T-Man]

Since there was a bit of a discussion about the Mustang at the Facebook Group A place I decided to sum up some of the data I collected.


First off the CC Motorsports car.

Built in 1983 with round headlights, driven in the Spa 24h, Silverstone TT. Then switched to square headlights and raced at the Zolder ETCC round. The car did at least one non-championship race in the UK in 1983 and test races in Belgium could be possible.
The car was then sold to Bodo Jähn/Autoveri in late 1983/early 1984 and was driven in the 1984 Donington ETCC round and at the AVUS round of the DPM.
Then things get a bit blurry for a while. some sites say that this car was entered in the 1984 Spa 24h by IRS Euromotor where it retired with quite severe accident damage. This could be the front damage mentioned by Rob a few posts above.
Reinhold Gröpper bought this car and raced it the following years (85-87) in the DPM/DTM plus various non-championship races and german ETCC rounds. The car was then painted white/light blue. In some 1987 races Gröpper had a white/blue/red car, so was this just a repaint of the CC car or a different car?


Now the Zakspeed cars

2 Cars built by Zakspeed in 1983. Very limited action in Europe. As far as I know Klaus Niedzwiedz did the German GP support race and was able to keep up with the Jaguar XJS. The car(s) might have done some more racing on the Nordschleife. In 1984 both cars went to Australia into the hands of Dick Johnson. First outing was the 1984 Bathurst 1000 where Johnson/French entered the car for the practice only. Johnson used the Mustang for the following 2 years. It is not known to me if these 2 cars are the only ones used by Johnson or if he built/bought another one. As far as I know one of the cars stayed in NZ and was raced there for some time (Robbie Ker ?).


Ringshausen

One car debuted in the 1984 DPM season quite successfully by Manfred Trint. Roland Asch took over the driving duties for 1985 and 1986, with a 2nd car entered for Helmut Döring in 1985. If this car was used by Volker Schneider in 1986 is unknown.

Seikel Motorsport

This car first appeared in 1987 for a few of the ETCC rounds. Sold to Gerd Ruch in 1988 and entered in the Nürburgring ETCC round and the DTM final. Car was used throughout most of the 1989 and 1990 season. For the 1991 season a new car was added and the old one was updated to new aerodynamics. The old car had a quite bad accident at Singen late in the season revealing the original red color of the car.

unknown cars:

Dutchman Bert Moritz entered a Mustang in the 88 Dutch championship.

in 1991 Heinz Becker practiced a Mustang at two DTM rounds but never made it to the start. No pictures of that one ... no info on it either....



The Australian/NZ cars

one car first entered at Bathurst in 1984 by Don Smith/Barry Seton, afterwards used by Smith in the first few rounds of the 1985 ATCC and then sold on to the Anderson brothers in NZ, where it ran the over the next few years with a few visits to Australia for the 85 and 86 Bathurst 1000 and a few other selected races.

A second car was built by the Anderson brothers which also was brought over for the 1986 Bathurst race.


Lawrie Nelsons car. First appeared at the 1984 Bathurst race. Car appeared for the next few years in Nelsons hands.

Ken Davison entered the 1985 Bathurst race in yet another Mustang.

There are probably a handful other cars that were raced in Australia and NZ during this time.

I guess the Australians can add a few more to the list.

[chunterer]

Nice summary T-Man!

The CC car did a special saloon race at Thruxton late in 1983, or at least it was entered?
Wonder if anyone has photos from that meeting?

The Zakspeed cars puzzle me greatly. Why did they go to the lengths of building the cars only to give them limited use?

How much involvement did Ford of Germany have?

Was a private entrant involved and then withdrew interest?

[T-Man]

Aside from the fact that Niedzwiedz drove one of the Zakspeed cars and that they are the origin of the DJR cars I can't find a single thing about them anywhere on the web. Zakspeed was pritty much the Ford works team in the early 80's. Running the big Capris in the DRM, later on building the C100 prototype. They also ran the GTX Mustangs and GTP Probe GT in the IMSA Championship. Maybe they built those 2 cars as test cars for the new regulations and Ford Europe/Germany didn't approve of them racing a car that wasn't even available in Europe. I suspect Zakspeed could have entered some races of the Langstreckenpokal/VLN in 1983 to give the cars some testing under proper race conditions, but there are no results anywhere for those early seasons of the championship plus the Nürburgring was being rebuilt in 1983 so there wasn't that much racing going on there, for example the 24h race was cancelled.

A little jump in time to early 1987. Dick Johnson entered one of the cars in the Wellington 500 race sharing the car with Kiwi Robbie Ker. After a heavy crash they withdrew their entry and the car stayed with Ker, who kept using it for NZ Group A racing and at some point before 1989 rebuilt the car to "Sports Sedan" specs with wider wheelarches, etc.


The car then went through a whole bunch of hands until being bought by Ross Donnelly and rebuilt to original DJR specs by the same guy who built the two Pinepac Mustangs.

http://www.v8.co.nz/articles/ford-in...e-real-deal-42


One more picture of the Bert Moritz Mustang from 1988. Interesting field ...


Attached is a picture of the 2nd livery used by Gröpper in the 1987 DTM, which might have been just a repaint of the original CC car.

[chunterer]

Some good images there...

OT for a moment, I don't think I've seen many from Holland during their brief flirtation with GrA?

The Arthur Van Dedem BMW is presumably leading there, but seeing as there's only a couple of contemporary cars in that field I wonder if a few have already gone through shot at Tarzan?

The Jeroen Hin Marlboro Sierra is just visible.

You think the Moritz Mustang (next to the infamous Mazda 929!) is an ex DTM car, maybe the ex Gropper/CC car perhaps?

[T-Man]

I remember seeing a different shot of the Moritz Mustang where it suspiciously looks like the repainted CC/Gröpper car, so it's very likely that he bought the car for the 1988 season. Both cars also ran the original style grille while most others switched to the newer one, which later was applied to Moritz car aswell, as seen in the other picture of the car earlier in this thread.

This isn't the picture i was talking about, but managed to come across this while I was putting this post together. I think this is just more proof that this is Gröppers car.



Another dutch car that comes to mind was the Bolderheij Sierra that appeared at the 24h Spa in 1988. Should be the car on the outside in the picture just after the start. Other cars visible include a Alfa GTV6, 635csi and a 325i.

[one five five]

Originally Posted by T-Man

It is not known to me if these 2 cars are the only ones used by Johnson or if he built/bought another one.

Johnson only used the two Zakspeed cars.

One is owned and raced by Bill Pye in historic Group A racing, the other is owned by the Bowdens in Queensland.

[Frank de Jong]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Some good images there...
The Arthur Van Dedem BMW is presumably leading there, but seeing as there's only a couple of contemporary cars in that field I wonder if a few have already gone through shot at Tarzan?

I'm sorry, but that picture was the optimum field of 1988; two Sierras (at least one with Rouse parts), an M3 (built with Motorsport and Linder parts), the 929 which was from 1986, same year as the 325i. The Mustang and Alfetta were prpbably a bit older than that.
The Hin Sierra, ran by Van Amersfoort, was a regular contender and winner, while the other was shared between Bolderheij and Bouwman - it did not compete in every round.

[T-Man]

Thanks for the clarification about the Johnson/Zakspeed cars.

So the Bill Pye car is the one that went to New Zealand in 1987 and stayed there untill it was rebuilt by Ross Donnelley. The car is now running on white 5-spoke rims. On the DJR website this car is called Zakspeed 1, as it's the car that first arrived in Australia and was used at the 1984 Bathurst practice. This car was used throughout the 1985 ATCC season and ran as no.18 in the 1985 Bathurst race. It was in JPS colours for the 1986 Wellington 500 and remained the spare car for 1986 before getting one last run at the early 1987 Wellington race.

The second car which is now owned by the Bowdens is on golden multispoke BBS rims. This car also has a non-standard hood. I don't know too much about the cars whereabouts after Dick Johnson retired it after the 1986 season. It showed up at a Sportscar race at Wanneroo in the mid-late 90's in the hands of Ray Miles.
This car is called Zakspeed 2 at Johnsons Website, making it's debut at the 1985 endurance rounds. Johnson claimed the only win for any Group A Mustang at the very first Adelaide GP support race that year. This car stayed the main car for the 1986 season and was sold at the end of 1986.

I've come across a site which has photos of all known Aussie Group A Mustangs. very helpful
http://www.mustangracing.com.au/group_A01.htm

So we got the 2 Johnson cars.
2 Pinepac cars, one previously used by Don Smith
The Lawrie Nelson car
Another one for Davison/Kramer which showed up at Bathurst 85 & 86
A car for Kevin Clark which ran in various liveries and shapes.

[philrob]

Hi guys,
does anybody have any specifications for the group A mustang as i am working on a rfac/GTR2 computer sim of the series and am finding it hard to pin down the specs.This is for my own use and for the sim community.

weight
bhp
cd
are the sort of things i need,
i have a number of quoted figures but it would be good to compare results, before adjusting the physics.

[Al Weyman]

Be nice to see one of these out and up against my IROC-Z which GM also homolgated but never actually entered but all from the same period. Maybe it was the Mustangs lack of form against the turbos that influenced GMs decision to pull out.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Be nice to see one of these out and up against my IROC-Z which GM also homolgated but never actually entered but all from the same period. Maybe it was the Mustangs lack of form against the turbos that influenced GMs decision to pull out.

Trouble is Al, I don't think you could get that happening!

These cars are Group A spec, Your car isn't and there's none over in Europe presently as most are in Australasia.

There were Group A spec'd Camaro's in the mid 90'as DTM against the Mustang but lord knows where any of those are now.

[T-Man]

There was only one IROC-Z running in the 1988 DTM season, driven by longtime Chevy-man Peter John and entered under the known "American Car Service" name. The cars performance was quite miserable compared to the technically superior RS500's and M3's. In the 4 races he started, he scored one 29th place and 3 DNF's.
The Ruch Mustang only joined later in the season, so there was never a real duel between the 2 american cars.

[DAVID PATERSON]

Originally Posted by philrob

Hi guys,
does anybody have any specifications for the group A mustang as i am working on a rfac/GTR2 computer sim of the series and am finding it hard to pin down the specs.This is for my own use and for the sim community.

weight
bhp
cd
are the sort of things i need,
i have a number of quoted figures but it would be good to compare results, before adjusting the physics.

Minimum weight for the car was 1325 kg + driver + fuel

According to the Bathurst yearbooks, they had 320hp when they arrived in Australia and after 12 months of development, DJ had 360hp.

[philrob]

thanks for your reply david, i am assuming this is 84/85 ?

i have seen so many conflicting figures for specs, it starts to get hard to choose.But i guess if they are coming from the yearbooks they would have had fresh information.

[chunterer]

This may not be general knowledge but the CC Racing Belga car from 1983 latterly campaigned by Reinhard Gropper in Germany and Bert Moritz in Holland is close to being fully restored and will be seen out in Classic Group A classed in 2017 in Europe.

I will try and find some images to share at some point unless anyone else can?

[chunterer]

The CC car was out at Zolder last weekend in the Belcar historic event.

Christophe van Riet owns it now I think.

Looks and sounds superb. Hopefully we will see it out more often in Peter Auto and hopefully MRL touring car events when we can move about more freely again.

[Gerard C]

If you're talking about the one I've in mind, ex Vince Woodman/ Jonathan Buncombe, as chunterer says it now belongs to GipiMotor and is race ready and for sale: https://www.gipimotor.com/racing/sal...-gra-1982.html

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

If you're talking about the one I've in mind, ex Vince Woodman/ Jonathan Buncombe, as chunterer says it now belongs to GipiMotor and is race ready and for sale: https://www.gipimotor.com/racing/sal...-gra-1982.html

That is the car. Nice bloke called Olly M was involved in the rebuild a few years back.

Shame it isn't seen out more often and the Pinepac one seems to have vanished too?

[Gerard C]

Now you say… I think originally there were two PinePac built or rebuilt. I only saw one in HTC races (I did not enter since 2016 or '17), one of the last appearance of the yellow PinePac was in 2018 if I'm right. On board vid here should you appreciate it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL1YDOCjSXM

[Gerard C]

By the way if you think that my post is not fully relevant, can be seen as an offense or irrespective or OT or whatever, please feel free to delete it. Please.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Now you say… I think originally there were two PinePac built or rebuilt. I only saw one in HTC races (I did not enter since 2016 or '17), one of the last appearance of the yellow PinePac was in 2018 if I'm right. On board vid here should you appreciate it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL1YDOCjSXM

Yes, there was two come to think of it.

Is it a coincidence that once people questioned how competitive these cars were, compared to how they fared in period, that they stopped entering?

[Gerard C]

I see your point. I see it very well in fact… Nothing personal but its what we call in french a "slippery slope" une pente savonneuse if you prefer… I've been amazed to see what a Golf GTI or a Fiesta Mk1 can do at GW for instance.

The PinePac I saw looked very well rebuilt and maintained, skilled drivers pedaling fast and safely. As to know if it is faster than was in period, cant say. When I did the 24 Hours of Francorchamps, "the" race of reference for the HTC grid, it was in '76…

[Gerard C]

The Belg' one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm2G2id32cw

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

I see your point. I see it very well in fact… Nothing personal but its what we call in french a "slippery slope" une pente savonneuse if you prefer… I've been amazed to see what a Golf GTI or a Fiesta Mk1 can do at GW for instance.

The PinePac I saw looked very well rebuilt and maintained, skilled drivers pedaling fast and safely. As to know if it is faster than was in period, cant say. When I did the 24 Hours of Francorchamps, "the" race of reference for the HTC grid, it was in '76…

Pinepac Mustangs were well prepped but uncompetitive in Aus/Nz in the day. Only Dick Johnson and Zakspeed got them anywhere near front running pace.

I am sure Clark and Cook would have done too given time and backing.