The C word
Porsche attacked the challenge ahead without politics and with a clear vision, proper budget, major sponsor, solid pedigree and plenty of ambition
40 years ago, in 1982, the World Endurance Championship (WEC), and indeed global Sportscar racing, started its most successful era ever. The new Group C class would ultimately unite more manufacturers (10) than ever before, or since, in any FIA world championship. It would be run to the same set of technical regulations for longer than any other discipline before or since (nine seasons in total between 1982 and 1990) and took the first tentative steps towards sustainable motorsport, long before it became fashionable, or indeed necessary.
In 1976, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), organisers of the Le Mans 24 Hours, created its own class for closed cockpit Prototypes. It called it GTP, short for Grand Tourisme Prototype. Mainly aimed at smaller constructors, but quietly hoping for a manufacturer to think along the same lines, the GTP class called for Prototypes with closed bodywork, yet vaguely resembling a road car by the presence of a roof, doors, windscreen and headlights.
Over in America, John Bishop and his International Motor Sport Association (IMSA) faced the same problems as the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA): Porsche privateer teams were dominating the championship with their 935s, and American manufacturers had little interest in trying to beat them. So, at the end of 1980, IMSA decided to take a leaf out of the ACO’s book and also create its own GTP class. At the same time, IMSA and FISA were having preliminary talks about the future of Sportscar racing on a global scale from 1982 onwards.
Run what you have
Under the leadership of its French president, Jean-Marie Balestre, the FISA had already begun to seriously consider the future of Sportscar racing. Mid-1980, it correctly recognised that many manufacturers would be interested in entering a championship, but only if a decent set of rules could make it attractive to them, without having to spend ridiculous sums of money to have only a slight chance of winning.
Balestre and his advisers identified the most expensive part of any racecar, in terms of development cost, was the engine. At the same time, the world’s first oil crisis, less than 10 years earlier, had convinced them that motorsport should play a
