Among the most famous wins in motorsports history is Mazda’s 1991 win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The 1991 Mazda 787B racecar claimed the first, and still only win for a Japanese manufacturer at Le Mans, as well as the only win from a car with a rotary engine. But there was another car that paved the way for the 787B, another rotary-engined car that won a 24-hour endurance race a full decade before Mazda’s win at Le Mans, and that car is an RX-7 belonging to Tom Walkinshaw Racing.
In 1981, the RX-7 was still a pretty new car, having only just debuted in 1979. It wasn’t completely new to motorsports, and had even grabbed a class win at the 1979 24 Hours of Daytona, similar to the kind of success enjoyed by earlier Mazda rotary racing cars. But in 1980, Mazda and Tom Walkinshaw entered the 24 Hours of Spa Francorchamps. It wasn’t an impressive year for the RX-7s at Spa, but the lessons learned were put to good use, and in 1981, TWR grabbed an overall win at Spa, finally providing really solid evidence of the performance potential of the Wankel rotary engine.
Continue reading to learn more about the 1981 Mazda RX-7 TWR Race Car.
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