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Ever since there were cars, people have raced them. Motorsports is an emotion and a passion that runs through the veins of most car enthusiasts. Motorsports is also the best platform for a carmaker to showcase their engineering prowess and expertise. It is a global stage where all rules typically associated with a road-going car are off, and you get to decide who makes the fastest car. It is a rat race, but unlike others, there’s blood, sweat, and a lot of drama involved in this, making racing one of the most exciting sporting events.
There have been good and bad race cars over the years. But there also exists a rare breed of race cars that were so dominating and exciting that they are gone, but never to be forgotten. Here are the 10 best race cars:
10 McLaren MP4/4
What better way to start this list than the iconic and legendary Marlboro-liveried McLaren MP4/4 that was piloted by none other than Ayrton Senna?
This is the racecar that Senna beat his teammate Alain Prost to win 15 out of 16 races that year, making it the most dominating F1 car ever made. Sitting behind the driver is a Honda RA168E 1.5-liter turbocharged V6, pushing out 700hp to the rear wheels.
9 Porsche 956
Stefan Bellof’s lap time of 6 minutes and 11.13 seconds during qualifying for the 1983 1000 km of Nürburgring is still the fastest time around the Nordschleife. And if the Porsche 956 could do that in the 1980s, it does say a lot about it, right?
Also, the Porsche 965 won the overall Le Mans 24 Hours race four consecutive times between 1982 and 1985. The racecar was powered by a 2.6-liter turbocharged flat-six engine, that developed around 625hp.
8 Nissan Skyline GT-R R32
The whole Godzilla name came into the picture with the R32 Skyline GTR and its dominance at various motorsport events in Asia and Australia. It obliterated everything that came against it and won 29 out of 29 Japanese Touring Car Championship (JTCC ) that it entered in the 1990s.
The BNR32 was powered by a tricked-out version of the 2.6-liter RB26DETT that produced 550hp in a car that weighed around 2777 pounds.
7 BMW E30 M3 Touring Car
Like the R32 Nissan Skyline GTR, BMW’s first-ever M3, the E30 M3 was an absolute force in Motorsports. To its name are 7 touring car championships, 2 hill climb championships, and 2 rally championships, making it one of the most versatile racing cars after the Porsche 911.
Under the hood of the 2072 lbs Group A touring spec M3 was a 2.3-liter engine that produced 300hp at 8,200 rpm.
6 Porsche 917
The 917 is an incredible racecar that helped Porsche win Le Mans and dominate endurance racing. In its final iteration, the 917 was powered by a 5.4-liter turbocharged V12 engine that developed a whopping 1014hp and had a top speed of 239mph. Hard to beat that today, and Porsche did all of this in the 1970s.
There were numerous iterations of the 917/20 but the Pink Pig and the 917K (in the Gulf Livery) stand out as the more memorable ones.
5 Ford GT40
The Ford GT40 does not ever need an introduction. This is the American car that shook Ferrari and the great Enzo. In 1966, after years of perseverance, Ford finished 1-2-3 at the legendary 24 hours of Le Mans race and repeated the victory over the next couple of years.
There are different versions of the GT40 namely the Mark I, II, III, and IV. The later versions of the historic American racecar used a 7.0-liter V8.
4 McLaren F1 GTR
The McLaren F1 was something else when it debuted. The F1 pretty much rewrote all the benchmarks of a hypercar and took the crown of the fastest car in the world and held on to it for a really long time.
McLaren figured they’ll go racing in the F1 at the FIA GT Championship and created the F1 GTR which won the 24 Hours of Le Mans competition in 1995 beating more focused purpose-built race cars. Pictured here is the F1 GTR Long Tail, the rarest version of the F1 racecar.
3 Lancia Stratos HF
When it came out, the Lancia Stratos was an alien to the automotive world. It was a car that was built with the sole purpose of dominating the rally scene and the first car to do that as well.
Lancia is not a new name when it comes to rallying, but the most iconic car from the Italian marque is the Stratos followed by the Lancia 037. This quirky little thing won the World Rally Championship three years in a row in the 1970s.
2 Mazda 787B
Arguably the most celebrated Japanese racecar of all time, the Mazda 787B’s resume does not look as glorious as some others on this list. It has only won one outing of the 24 hours of the Le Mans and some argue that the 787B was lucky.
All said and done, the Mazda 787B is the best-sounding car ever made thanks to its unorthodox R26B 2.6-liter rotary engine, and it was supremely reliable than all of its established racing competitors that used a conventional engine. It sure doesn’t look like the Mazda 787B got lucky.
1 Tyrrell P34
The Tyrell P34 has to be the most outrageous racecar of all time. A legit Frankenstein, Tyrell cleverly made use of loopholes in the FIA rule book to create a 6-wheeled monster of an F1 car.
The P34 took the 1-2 finish at the Swedish Grand Prix but over the years, advancements in aerodynamics made it obsolete and slow, ultimately leading to its retirement in 1977. The Tyrrell P34 is an important racecar and one that was a result of some out-of-the-box thinking.
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