GTP Cool Wall: 1991 Mazda 787B

1991 Mazda 787B

  • Total voters
    127
  • Poll closed .
White & Nerdy

White & Nerdy

4,209
United States
Wasilla, AK
1991 Mazda 787B nominated by Doodle

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Stats:
Production: 1991
Style: 2-door coupe
Engine: R26B 160 ci/2,616 cc naturally aspirated 4-rotor (rated 700 HP & 448 lb-ft as raced, or 930 HP & ??? lb-ft with a maximum redline of 10,500 RPM when tuned to potential - the latter setup was not used for reliability reasons)
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Layout: Mid-engine, Rear-drive
Related: Mazda 787​
 
Facts:
  • Winner of the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans.
  • The only Japanese car to do so.
  • The only car to ever win that wasn't using a piston engine.
  • Sound is extremely sexy.
  • I am as old as this car. (Not that it really matters.)








Sub-Zero.
 
Crooooooow
Can we have dislike buttons?

When this car debuted in GT3, I went gaga when I found the keys turn up in my hand.
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That's great, good for you. I'm sure you can make a thread in site portion of this forum asking for it. I'd love to see how many times I'm hated/disliked :sly:.

Point still stands for me, and some affinity for it based on a game doesn't change the fact it's a race car and makes it uncool.
 
Famine and I usually have similar opinions on what's cool and what's not. He believes all racing cars are seriously uncool, but the sheer glory and sublimeness of the 787B's scream forces me to think of a way so it can be Sub Zero. Because it obviously is, it's undeniable. But how? Surely, you can't judge the coolness of race cars like you judge the coolness of road cars. Will women like it? Is it show-offy or understated? How will it look parked in front of a cafe in Paris? Will people think you're mad in the awesome sense or the frightening sense? None of that applies to a racing car, because it'll obviously be absurdely uncool. You know that incessantly quoted Einstein quote about a fish and yadda yadda...

The sad and horribly uncool fact is that racing cars are by-the-numbers excercises of blending engineering with advertisement, they're the brainchilds of engineering nerds and beancounters. Except...when they're not. When a racing car defies belief, when it shocks and awes everyone in the racing community and ends up being much more than the sum of it's sponsors and the months of wind-tunnel testing, when it appears that someone in the meeting room that approved the racing program for said car actually had a heart and soul, that's when it can be cool. A situation that measures the coolness of a racing car? If when being unloaded of the truck that transports it, the other crews gasp and feel insecure it's cool. If kids go to the brand's museum solely to watch that car because it's a legend. If the crowd likes it so much that they admire it even if it DNF (Think DeltaWing 2012), then it's cool.

Thus, having just invented my parameters for judging the coolness of a racing car: The friggin' 787B is one of the friggin' coolest race cars ever.
 
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CarBastard
Famine and I usually have similar opinions on what's cool and what's not. He believes all racing cars are seriously uncool, but the sheer glory and sublimeness of the 787B's scream makes me think of a way so it can be Sub Zero. Because it obviously is. But how? Surely, you can't judge the coolness of race cars like you judge the coolness of road cars. Will women like it? Is it show-offy or understated? How will it look parked in front of a cafe in Paris? Will people think you're mad in the awesome sense or the frightening sense? None of that applies to a racing car.

The sad and horribly uncool fact is that racing cars are by-the-numbers excercises of blending engineering with advertisement, they're the brainchilds of engineering nerds and beancounters. Except...when they're not. When a racing car defies belief, when it shocks and awes everyone in the racing community and ends up being much more than the sum of it's sponsors and the months of wind-tunnel testing, that's when it can be cool. A situation that measures the coolness of a racing car? If when being unloaded of the truck that transports it, the other crews gasp and feel insecure it's cool. If's kids go to the brand's museum solely to watch that car because it's a legend. If the crowd likes it so much that they admire it even if it DNF (Think DeltaWing 2012).

Thus, having just invented my parameters for judging the coolness of a racing car: The friggin 787B is one of the friggin' coolest race cars ever.
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Beautiful just beautiful, and for a moment made me regret my decision, but I came back from that and I'm still stuck with it. Heroes don't exist...nah I kid that last bit, but you do make a great point.
 
It's almost hard to believe that this car and it siblings are nearly 25 years old now. Even Mazda themselves didn't give this car a chance to win Le Mans that year but they pulled one of the biggest upset wins in motorsports history. The recent years has given this car a bigger fan following than it had back then.

The soundtrack might have a reason for that.

Sub-zero for the underdog.
 
Seriously uncool because race car.

Lemans win aside, it was an average race car at best.
 
A car that got rotary engines outlawed in Group C racing in the 90's simply can't be cool.

A win at Le Mans still doesn't disguise the rather unsuccessful history in the World Sportscar Championship that year.
 
It is the coolest race car of all time, even cooler than the Porsche 917, in my opinion.

It has four rotors.
It screams.
It won Le Mans.
It got rotary engines banned in Le Mans.
It has a flawless exterior design.
It's about the only car I've seen to have an orange-green paint scheme, and still look good.
Being a Group C race car, it's faster than modern LMP's.

Sub-Zero.

Voting this car uncool because it's a racecar just screws up the cool wall. I got excited when I saw this had 22 SZ votes, and only 2 cool votes, then I scrolled down to find the five who put no thought into their votes.
 
If not my all-time favourite race car, one of the top five. Saw - and heard - it running at Le Mans last year. Awesome.

Seriously uncool, because race car.
JMoney689
Voting this car uncool because it's a racecar just screws up the cool wall.
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Having race cars on the cool wall screws up the cool wall.
 
JMoney689
There actually is some truth to that statement. The same goes for concepts.
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Why should there be race cars on the Cool Wall in the first place? Maybe it'll be better to put them on a separate Wall? Then again, it's probably too late as the "because race car" mentality already polarized the voting results for race cars in accordance to the Cool Wall we have now.
 
I used to be terrified of this thing when I was 6. The Sound in GT3 was just, scary....

Any car that has scared me or scares me gets my Sub-Zero.
 

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