Return to johnwsmith's garage

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Published on 31 October 2020

Hi guys ,congratulations on your show. I have just come across this episode and wish to correct a commonly held belief about the A70 Group A Supra When the Group A regulations were drawn up in the early 1980’s ,they were loosely based around a power to weight classification. A mathematical formula was introduced classifying turbo cars into their particular class as “ engine capacity times 1.4” . In the Supra’s case , — 2,954cc x1.4= 4,135 , therefore it would race in the 5ltr. Class , with a minimum weight of 1,50kg. In 1988, for various reasons, they changed the turbo factor to 1.7, and again with the Supra , 2954cc x 1.7 = 5,022. This meant that the car had to race in the 6ltr class and carry 1420kg For the sake of 22cc the car had to carry 170kg more. When you compare the Sierra at 1170kg , Commodore at 1250kg and Nissan GTR , 1250kg , it easy to understand why it wasn’t competitive. It’s ironic that Toyota introduced the legendary 2.5ltr ’J’ series engine in 1993 , but by that time Group A was dead. I still own the TTA car which is a piece of engineering excellence and it’s a great shame that it never got to show it’s true potential.