Let me help you on the history of this car!
In 1991 Mazda became the first (and up to March 2007 the only) Japanese manufacturer to win the Le Mans 24hr race with this car, the 787B. Mazda began it's campaign to win the 24hrs of Le Mans in 1983 with the 717C, which was built for the then new Group C regulations for sportscar racing. The most unusual feature of Mazda's Group C sportscars was their rotary or Wankel engines (so named after the inventor of rotary engines, Felix Wankel). Mazda were one of the pioneers of rotary engine technology along with the German company NSU, General Motors and Citroen.
Wankel engines have several major advantages over reciprocating piston designs, in addition to having higher output for similar displacement and physical size. Wankel engines are considerably simpler and contain far fewer moving parts. For instance, because valving is accomplished by simple ports cut into the walls of the rotor housing, they have no valves or complex valve trains; in addition, since the rotor is geared directly to the output shaft, there is no need for connecting rods, a conventional crankshaft, crankshaft balance weights, etc. The elimination of these parts not only makes a Wankel engine much lighter (typically half that of a conventional engine of equivalent power), but it also completely eliminates the reciprocating mass of a piston engine with its internal strain and inherent vibration due to repeated acceleration and deceleration, producing not only a smoother flow of power but also the ability to produce more power by running at higher rpm. In addition to the enhanced reliability by virtue of the elimination of this reciprocating strain on internal parts, the engine is constructed with an iron rotor within a housing made of aluminum, which has greater thermal expansion. This ensures that even a severely overheated Wankel engine cannot seize, as would likely occur in an overheated piston engine.
Unfortunately, rotary engines initially displayed a tendency to wear out prematurely, due to the tips of the rotor wearing out rapidly. The resulting warranty claims on the Wankel engined Ro80 nearly ruined NSU resulting in their takeover by VW in 1969. The premature wear problem was solved by use of more durable materials on the rotor tips and by injecting a small amount of engine oil into the rotor chamber (which is another problem with rotary engines, their tendency to be "oil burners" by design), but what really killed off the Wankel engine was the first fuel crisis in 1973 following the Yom-Kippur Arab-Israeli war. Rotary engines are considerably less fuel efficient than reciprocating type engines due to their relatively large combustion chambers, with results in a lower compression ratio. This means more fuel is burnt per cycle of the engine.
Due to the engines lack of efficiency and due to concerns about the difficulty in adapting the Wankel engine to future emissions regulations, Citroen abandoned it's plans to build Wankel engined cars after only a short run of GS Birotor were made in 1973 and went so far as to try and buy back as many of them as it could to avoid the responsibility of having to supply spare parts for them. GM and Mercedes-Benz (who also planned to build rotary engined cars) cancelled their rotary engine design projects leaving Mazda as the sole builder of these engines for use in passenger cars. A casualty of the decision by GM not to go ahead with it's rotary engine was AMC who had designed their new Pacer to use the engine under license from GM. The Pacer instead was fitted with AMCs old and heavy straight six engine which made a dreadful car even more awful than it would otherwise have been!
So if it were not for Mazda then the rotary engine's history as an engine for passenger cars would have ended prematurely. Mazda decided to develop the engine for use in sportscar racing due to it's advantages in terms of size and weight especially. Having a relatively small and light engine that still produces enough power to be competitive was a real advantage for any race car.
The 1980s at Le Mans were dominated by the Porsche 956/962 until 1988 when the Jaguar XJR-9LM won. 1989 saw victory go to the Sauber-Mercedes C9 and Jaguar won again in 1990. 1991 was the last year for Group C cars at Le Mans and hence was also the last year Mazda's rotary engined Group C cars could compete. From 1992, only cars with 3.5 litre reciprocating engines were to be permitted. 1990 saw the introduction of the 787, but neither of the two 787s entered lasted the distance.
For the 1991 race, Mazda entered three 787s, two of them being 787B's which had numerous improvements compared to the 1990 car. All three finished the race, with the number 55 car (one of the 787Bs) driven by Johnny Herbert, Bertrand Gachot and Volker Weidler crossing the line in first place. This marked the first and only win to date (2007) by a Japanese manufacturer, and the only win by a non-piston engined car. The winning Mazda completed 362 laps in the 24hrs, 2 laps ahead of the 2nd placed Jaguar XJR-12. The winning Mazda spent much of the race in 3rd place behind two Sauber-Mercedes C11s, moving up to 2nd place when one of the German cars spun off during the night. Up until the 22nd hour the Mazda held onto 2nd place when the leading C11 hit trouble and the Mazda went into the lead, which it held on to until the end. Johnny Herbert drove an extra shift behind the wheel to finish the race and was so exhausted he had to be helped out of the car and was unable to make it to the podium. Belgian Gachot and German Weidler stood on the podium without Herbert. Gachot at the time was also driving for Jordan in Formula 1 and found himself in prison in the UK after being convicted of assault a few weeks after his Le Mans triumph. He sprayed a London cab driver with CS gas in a road rage type incident and was given a 2 month sentence. The first race he missed as a result was the Belgian GP which resulted in Michael Schumacher being given the opportunity to drive Gachot's Jordan in his place.
The winning 787B was retired from racing by Mazda and now is one of the star displays at the Le Mans museum. It also makes appearances at events such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Monterey historic races at Laguna Seca in California.
The car itself had a 4 rotor Wankel engine which produced around 700bhp in race trim. Drive was through the rear wheels via a 5 speed gearbox and the chassis and bodywork was made from carbon fibre. One of the major improvements the 787B had over the 787 was carbon brake discs compared to steel discs on the earlier car.
This 1:18th model of the winning 787B was the first release in AUTOart's new "Signature" line, becoming available in the first half of 2006. The new Signature series of models are meant to have a higher level of detail than previously seen on older AUTOart releases and unfortunately a higher price too! In fairness to AUTOart this Mazda is comparable to similar models from more expensive model makers such as Exoto and is still considerably cheaper.
