Mazda 787B - Renowned for its charging performance ( #BlogPost )

We all know the story: 25 years ago, Mazda entered the arena of Le Mans with its strong fighter, the Mazda 787B. Equipped with a 2.6 liter naturally aspirated 4-rotor Rotary engine - R26B - making astonishing 700 hp (and potentially even more, around 900hp!). It was an engineering masterpiece and had astonishing reliability. The 787B charged to the victory of the Le Mans and is the only Japanese car that has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans - as well as the only car which didn’t use a piston engine. And because of that, the Renown Mazda 787B is now renowned.

The end.

Wait a second…

… What is Renown?

“Renown Mazda” must be one of the most iconic liveries of all time, but nobody seems to know, what kind of company Renown is. Usually, race cars would be sponsored by anything associated with cars, such as motor oils and gas (Castrol, Mobil 1, Pennzoil, Gulf) and car parts (Advan, Falken, HKS)
Also, race cars were quite heavily sponsored by cigarette and alcohol companies, such as Marlboro, Martini, State Express 555, Rothmans and so on. There are some oddballs too, such as Alitalia, which is an airline company.

Turns out that Renown is a Japanese clothing company - yes, a clothing company! That explains the quilt-like pattern on the Mazda. Also, the “CHARGE” logo that appears on the car - it’s the Renown’s sportswear brand. Mazda used Renown liveries on their car, well, because Renown was their main sponsor and provided clothing for Mazda for racing events since 1988. Renown is known outside Japan solely because of this car.

(Sorry, this blog post is a bit short, but I told pretty much what I had in mind!)