10 Best Japanese Sports Cars of All Time

[Shinsen774]

10 Best Japanese Race Cars of All Time

The May edition of Classic Motorsports magazine is out (great magazine). It has an article called the 10 Best Japanese Race Cars of all time. The list includes the 1962 Honda RA272 Formula 1 car, 1968 Toyota 2000GT, 1974 Datsin 240Z, 1971 Datsun 510, 1974 Mazda RX-3, 1980 Mazda RX-7, 1988 Nissan GTP ZX-T prototype race car, 1997 Acura Integra Type R, 1991 Mazda 787B LeMans winner, and.......YES.......the 1992 Mazda Miata (rebirth of the roadster). Good showing for Mazda and good company for the Miata. The article says that since two years after the Miata's introduction, "a Miata has claimed an SCCA national road racing title every year with the lone exception of 1996. It has also become a dominant chassis in autocross competition."

 

[spacemonkey]

hmmm I dont know if they should include "race cars" as "sport cars." Especially prototype race cars.

So in place of the race cars I would nominate Hakasuka GTR which later became the skyline GTR. That launched the whole RX-3 deal. Back then Japanese Racing was between Nissan and MAzda. Nowadays its between Honda and Toyota.

 

[MazKid]

How the hell did that magnazine pick those years? The Miata was '90 on, the RX-7 was '79 on(personally '84-'85 GSL-SE was the best of the first gens), and the RX-3 was '73-'77.

Magnazine top ten lists are bogus.

 

[Shinsen774]

You'd have to read the article. The years are relevant because that is the year a car won a major race, or first came on to and/or dominated its class, etc. For the Miata, the article refers to the SSC class in SCCA in 1992 when Randy Pobst clinched the first national SCCA road racing championship for the Miata. Thus, 1992 is the year cited for the Miata. 1991 was the year for the Mazda 787B because that is the year it won at Lemans. The others are similar. Make sense?