Meet The Breakfast Club, a celebration of early 1970s sports car and Can-Am racing featuring the Porsche 917, the Ferrari 512, the Lola T70, and the McLaren M6/B.
The ‘Golden Era’ is one of those oft-used phrases to emphasise the best of the best, the crème de la crème, and the just plain awesome of times gone by, with motor racing being absolutely no exception. For every turbocharged era of Formula 1, there is a Group B age of rallying designed to mist up many an enthusiasts rose-tinted spectacles. And while the Nissan R90CKs, Jaguar XJ12s and Porsche 956s of Group C endurance sports car racing tend to leave fans short of breath and bleeding from the eardrums, so too could Group 5 racing of the early 1970s.
Now, because this is motorsport – designed to be a mind-effer at the best of times – Group 5 was an era that diversified four times in less than nine years, so we’ll try to offer the abridged version here. The original generation between 1966 and 1969 was aimed more towards the ‘holy crap’ levels of touring cars, and it was only when the second gen arrived in 1970 that things started getting truly serious. Regulations governed 5-litre engine, homologated sports cars competing for the FIA International Championship of Makes, with established racing machines like the Ford GT40 – already a four-time series champion – and Lola T70 being earmarked in particular. Company honour at both Porsche and Ferrari could hardly stand for this, with the similarly 5-litred 917 and 512 respectively appearing shortly thereafter when homologation and technical rules were relaxed (and changed altogether for 1972). Two seasons of Porsche domination though has done little to dampen the public’s enthusiasm for Group 5 racing machinery…
Which brings us to The Breakfast Club, three of the era’s four halcyon classics – the Ferrari 512, Porsche 917K and the Lola T70 – brought together with a Can-Am-winning legend – the McLaren M6B/GT – at the 74th Goodwood Members’ Meeting this year by independent producers, Blackbird Automotive. Across this near-10 minutes video, we’re introduced to each model and its competitive history, each respective owner and the work that’s gone into the restoration, and why each model is befitting of its legendary status. Anyone expecting Molly Ringwald dancing to Karla DeVito may be in for a surprise…
A couple of points we would make though. If the ‘fluttering’ sound has been included to sound like a knackered VHS…bravo for creative thinking, but we could do without that. And while ‘The Beauty’, ‘The Brain’, the ‘The Outsider’ and ‘The Athlete’ may outline the character traits and overall heritage of these four models perfectly, combined, they do sound like an MTV-produced rip off of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Having said that, The Breakfast Club is nevertheless a respectfully and artfully put together tribute, the individual chapters of which you can also find below.
