gtu name history?
 

its nifty to read all your dads old road & track mags. so i found an early '93 issue that has the brand new fd in it. cool. well anyways. in the mag they covered the daytona 24 hr race of 92'. did you guys know that mazda built a 4 rotor racer to compete and won in '91? even more astonishing is that the rx-7 won the daytona 24hr gtu class for the 12 time in a row in '92. so my question is, did they name the gtu model because of the class?

Re: gtu name history?
 

most likely they did. :D

I doubt it, not to burst your buble or anything. Where is Icemark and his never ending knowledge of second gens. Lates matt22

about the 88 GTU (from my web page):

FYI: IMSA GTU cars are cars with engines under 2.5 liters displacement.

In 89 however Mazda finally decided to up the factory effort RX-7 into the GTO class by racing the 3 and 4 rotor versions, and used the MX-6 as the basis for the GTU class cars. However, Al Bacon did drive a GTU class RX-7 in the 89 Daytona winning the class and making it the 8th win in the GTU class at the 24 hour race. Despite this win; Mazda has not since 88, won the manufactures championship for the GTU class.

The there were several FC RX-7 GTU class wins in 90 but the biggest was again the 24 hours at Daytona. Something that the FC based GTU cars would also repeat in 91, 92 and 93.

Re: gtu name history?
 

Yes.

IMSA racing classes GT-U and GT-O.
GT under
GT over
Under/over depended on engine displacement.
Icemark mentioned 2.5 liters - I always thought it was 3.0 liters. :)


-Ted

cool.

So I thought the GTUs(especially the '90 GTUs) was manufactured specifically so they could race it in the GTU class. Is that what they were racing in the 88 and 89 GTU class?

Steve

no. the gtu rules allow a pp12a (remember 13b is 2.6l its in the gto class, with turbo porsches), with the stock body, or a bp 12a with a tube chassis. minimum wieght was 2250lbs give or take, imsa used a weight penalty system; for instance in 1980 they were at something like 2450lbs. the 80-87 gtu titles were all won by 1st gens, 5 of them by the same car

No, the street car was named after the race class. Remember, "GTU" is a trim type, not a model type. Besides, Mazda was racing in the GTU class with the 1Gen model. Also, note that there is no "GTO" trim street RX-7, although Mazda raced this class quite a bit.
http://www.mariahmotorsports.com/ext...ngbodypkgs.htm

Ahhh, had no clue it was the 1st gen they won all those titles with. :dunce:

STeve

hrm... where did GXL come from then?

i love mariah motorsports!!!

There were also 2Gen RX-7's racing in GTU, but by that time Mazda was concentrating more on the upscale GTO class. I actually still have some part numbers for the old 2Gen RX-7 GTU/GTS-2 body kits, although I doubt Mazda Comp is still selling them.

The Mazda marketing geeks thought it sounded cool. :D

Generally...

G = Racy Reference ("Grand Touring" was the "Spec-R" of the 80's)
X = Experimental
L = Luxury

I'm not saying that this is gospel, or that it was necessarily a factor in the name, but these are the more common references.

Re: Re: gtu name history?
 

I think it changed later on in the IMSA series, up from 2.5, to 2.8 and later 3.0, but that was like 15 years ago when I was following it so I could be wrong.

I know they kept trying to make it less competitive for the Rotary engine, and by upping the max displacement they were eventually able to get a underbored buick V6 in there that really killed everything else because of its HP.

Re: Re: Re: gtu name history?
 

Re: Re: Re: Re: gtu name history?
 

well according to that, then they did stay at 2.5 liters the whole time.

Re: Re: Re: Re: gtu name history?
 

sweet, ive been looking for something like that