The "I can't believe they raced it!" Thread.

So, the basic idea is to post pictures or links to unlikely race cars.

I'll start the ball rolling with this, I never knew until recently that an Aston Martin DB7 competed at a Le Mans 24 Hour test.

 

I don't see how a DB7 is an unlikely race car, considering it is a sports car.

 

Peugeot 806:



http://www.supertouringregister.com/register/vehicle/158/

 

Not exactly professional racing but...




Dodge Van Racing

 

I had one of these roll into the bit of Armco I had been leaning on 0.5 seconds before it hit.

 

Speaking of odd Honda USA-funded race cars:

 

Probably the most famous example at the top levels of motorsport:

 

A Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, reworked to run the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1981.

 

Stock? LOL.. I loved the Cannonball run

edit:

BMW E23 7 series ~(745i) racer :



BMW Z3 Ice racing car :



VW Caddy in a nation VW cup series:



BMW 8 series racer:

 

The info I found, the car used the floor of a Land Cruiser and a Chevy 350 with a 4-speed manual in place of the Rolls V8 and auto tranny.

 

Dacia were developing an S2000 Rally Car based on the Logan before Renault pulled the plug.

 

A crossover SUV - a Lexus RX at the 2005 24 Hours Nürburgring.






Recently had its go at the GTP Cool Wall, the Dacia Lodgy Glace ice race car. Sure, it's ultimately race car stuff inside at the end, but the fact that it used the bodywork of an MPV was still quirky.

 

Top Gear Magazine once reported on rallying a Prius back in 2002.

 

Whah wha wha wut what?!

Genuinely though that pic was upside down at first.

 

That's from a "24 Hours of LeMons" race. It's the shell from a Camaro on the body of a Ford Festiva.

The airplane "Spirit of LeMons" would probably be an even better example.

There's also a limo that's run a number of west coast races.

Really, with the way the prizes are structured, LeMons should have a large number of examples. The MetroGnome and the Angry Hamster are another couple that come to mind. Or the radial-engined MR2. Or the twin-engined MRolla.


The last ChumpCar race I did, there was an early-2000s Kia entered. I think it was a Sephia, but I don't remember exactly. Not to mention, it was won by a Volvo 740.

 

Compact/mini trucks.

 

Oh what, this thing?

 

Double-take... What a car.

 

Aston Martin Lagonda DB3.....banger car


Or how about a Ferrari Mondial banger...

 

What's unlikely about any if these?

 

They got past the drawing board

 

They're all regulation cars, not cars cars. The Ferrari was forced to take such a design because of the regulations. TBH, I actually liked the stepped nose on it because they put the numbers on the slant, so people could actually see them.

 

I can't believe this hasn't been posted yet

 

This one make Trabant race was part of the support program for the 1988 Hungarian Grand Prix... I don't think that Bernie would allow an event like this on an F1 weekend in the present day.

 

Maybe not exactly a "I can't believe they raced it!"-worthy car, but deffinitely an unusual racing car: The Morgan Plus 8 GT2



Originally built by "Roddy" Harvey Bailey and famed Touring Car Driver/Team owner Andy Rouse for the 1995 British GT Championship, the car was raced in the full BPR GT series in 1996 on behalf of Morgan Motor Cars and, while it wasn't exactly a class winner against the army of Porsche's, Dodge Vipers, the fatory Lotus Esprits and the Marcos LM600s that made up the class at the time, it was more than able to finish in the top six of the GT2 class on occasion (And it faster than most people thought a Wooden-chassied Racing Car had any right to be!).



After the original chasis was sold to a collector, a new, Aluminuim-Bonded chassis car featuring a Chevrolet-Sourced V8 (Nicknamed "Big Blue") was built by the late, great Morgan Tuner Chris Lauwrence, it ran fairly strong in the last few races of the 1997 FIA GT Championship (after suffering the usual "New Car Blues" for most of the season) before Morgan pulled the plug on the project to further develop a road-going version of "Big Blue's" chassis... Which later became the Aero 8 Road car.