Marv’s Garage: Group 5 was a party

Today I am looking at some of the wildest-appearing production car-based racers of the 20th Century. The FIA Group 5 class had been around since 1966, moving from being highly modified "special touring cars", to wild 5-litre "sports cars" like the Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512S for 1970 and '71. For 1972 they shifted to a 3L capacity cap but still ran as tube-frame "sports cars" until the 4th-generation of Group 5, "Special Production Cars", was brought into being in 1976.

While the standard body width had to apply teams were free to stretch the guards (fenders) as wide as they liked, chuck on ridiculous wings, and run flame-belching turbo engines.

Porsche's 911-based 935, especially the 935-78 "Moby Dick", pushed the rules hard and duked it out against BMW's M1 and 320 Turbos. Ferrari, Lancia, Ford, Chevrolet, Mazda, Toyota, and Nissan all had wild-looking race cars to run in the class.

Group 5 raced globally, with different names for the class grouping in different countries. They ran around the clock at Le Mans, Daytona, the Nurburgring and Spa, as well as banging fenders at Riverside, Sebring, Fuji, Brands Hatch, and even Down Under at tracks like Oran Park, Calder, Lakeside and Amaroo.

In 1982 the Group 5 cars were rolled into Group B as part of the FIA's process of simplifying class structure. Thankfully, many of the cars survive today so we can see them run at historic events, belching flames and power-sliding all over the track.