June 23, 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of Mazda winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1991 and to commemorate that momentous motorsport achievement, the automaker has launched a special website looking back at its Le Mans success.
While Mazda currently isn’t exactly associated with racing, there was a time when it was competing with some of the most famed names in motorsport. In 1970, it supplied a factory-spec 10A engine to a private Belgian team that raced in Le Mans and in 1984, it secured its first class win with the Lola T660 that was driven by John O’Steen, John Morton and Yoshimi Katayama.
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It took a further seven years before Mazda secured an overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It entered three cars in this race and the two famed 787Bs finished in first and sixth respectively while a year-old 787 came home in eighth. Piloting the race-winning car was Johnny Herbert, Bertrand Gachot, and Volker Weidler. During the course of the race, they completed 362 laps and won by more than two full laps. Thus Mazda became the first Japanese manufacturer to win Le Mans, a record it would hold for the next 27 years until Toyota won the race in 2018.
The Mazda 787B is an icon of endurance racing history and came outfitted with an R26B four-rotor engine. This engine pumped out no less than 690 hp at 9,000 rpm and produced a howl that could only be matched by Formula 1 cars from the V12 or V10 eras.
It is well worth checking out the complete website dedicated to Mazda’s success here. It details all of the company’s results at Le Mans while providing additional details about the 787B, its engine, the three drivers, and the famed endurance race itself.