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Gulf Mirage |
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The Mirage Lightweight Racing Car was a family of race cars built by J.W. Automotive Engineereing (JWAE) at Slough in England, initially to compete in international sports car races in the colours of the Gulf Oil Corporation. In all, from 1974 to 1978, the Mirages never finished outside of the top-ten positions at Le Mans, posting a first, two seconds, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and a tenth. Mirage race cars were the first to wear the legendary powder blue and marigold livery of Gulf Oil, the first to post race wins for Gulf Oil, and the last to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall for Gulf Oil. M1 M2, M3
M4, M5 M6 At the end of the 1971 season big "5 liter sportcars" like Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512 were banned, leaving the scene to nimbler "3 liter prototypes" and JWAE was ready with a new project from Len Bailey: the M6. The M6 consisted of a steel reinforced riveted aluminium chassis coupled with a detuned 3 liter Cosworth DFV Formula 1 engine as a stressed member, and covered by open fiberglass bodywork with a large rear wing: the first chassis was completed in March 1972 and raced at 12 Hours of Sebring, the second car was completed halfway into the season, and the third was used to test Weslake V12 engine. While heavier, the Weslake V12 was expected to be smoother and more powerful than the Cosworth, whose strong vibrations caused many reliability issues. Again the only victory was at Spa, in the 1973 Spa-Francorchamps 1000 km. Apart from this win, the 1973 season was less than successful. Most of the teams resources were dedicated to Weslake V12 engine development, which did not prove better than the Cosworth, and led to the end of the program with four chassis out of five rebuilt as GR7.
GR7
Gulf GR8 |
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Last Edit: 12/06/2024 | Page Added 30/04/2022 |