Spice Engineering was a British racing team
founded by driver
Gordon Spice in the
early 1980s, later becoming a successful
sports car constructor in 1986. They
competed in the
World
Sportscar Championship in Europe as well as the
IMSA GT Championship in North America,
at times partnering with major manufacturers such as
General Motors and
Honda
as well as race engine manufacturer
Comptech.
Team history
When founded by Gordon Spice, Spice Engineering initially used
Tiga sports cars in the World
Sportscar Championship, running in the smaller C2 category.
Debuting in the
1984 season, the
team managed to score five class wins in the championship, aiding
Tiga in finishing third in the constructor's standings. For
1985, the
engineering arm of Spice began to develop, as the team assisted in
the development of the new Tiga GC85 chassis.
Gordon Spice and
Ray Bellm managed to take another five
class victories that year, including at the 24 Hours of Le
Mans
, and winning the teams championship.
Now constructors their own cars for
1986, Spice also
expanded to the
IMSA GT
Championship, where they assisted in the running of
Pontiac's Camel Lights competitor. Meanwhile, in the
WSC, Spice would score another two victories, yet miss out on a
repeat of the team's championship to
Ecurie Ecosse. Spice would return to form in
1987, with
seven victories and retaking the championship. Spice would expand
on this even more in
1988, when in an
eleven race season, they failed to win their class only once, thus
earning them a third championship title.
In
1989,
Spice would attempt to move into the larger C1 class, where major
manufacturers like
Mercedes-Benz,
Porsche,
Jaguar,
Nissan,
Toyota, and
Aston Martin competed. Spice would
finish a disappointing ninth in the teams championship, with a race
result of fourth that season. Fortunes would improve in
1990 when a large
number of the major manufacturers exited the series, leaving Spice
to be able to take fourth place in the championship, ahead of the
various private
Porsche outfits and the
factory
Toyota squad.
In 1991, Spice chose to concentrate on the IMSA GT Championship,
opting not to run the World Sportscar Championship due to rule
changes that made their current chassis illegal , and constructing
new ones costly. However Euro Racing achieved a string of good
results in the
1991 WSC with a
Spice SE90C, including four fourth places, helping the team to
fourth in the teams championship whilst drivers Cor Euser and
Charles Zwolsman finished fifth and sixth in the drivers standings.
In addition another Spice had the distinction of being the only C1
class car to be a classified finisher in the
1991 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The following year
saw Chamberlain Engineering successfully campaigning a Spice SE89C
in the declining WSC - the team consistently scored points,
including a third place at the
1992 500km of Silverstone and
finished fourth in the championship, whilst their lead driver
Ferdinand de Lesseps finished seventh in the drivers championship.
Chamberlain also dominated the FIA Cup, with de Lesseps winning all
six rounds. Following the collapse of the GTP class in IMSA at the
end of 1993, Spice would drop out of sportscar development.
Constructor history
Following Spice's initial work on the
Tiga GC85, Gordon Spice decided to begin to
construct his own chassis not only for the C2 class in the World
Sportscar Championship, but also for the Lights class in IMSA GT.
He received engineering input from General Motors for the IMSA
effort, using Pontiac engines in place of the
Ford Cosworths.
The first design by the team was the SE86, which the SE standing
for Spice Engineering, and 86 for the year of its construction,
1986. This numbering scheme would be used by nearly all Spice
chassis.
After having considerable success with their smaller chassis, Spice
made the move to the larger C1 and GTP classes with the SE89. This
would be replaced by the successful SE90 the following year, of
which Spice built near 30 chassis of that design or similar over
several years. Many privateers bought the SE90s, winning various
championships. Spice would also end its relationship with General
Motors, instead becoming the factory squad for
Honda, running
Acura engines in
SE90-based chassis.
By 1992, Spice began to develop newer designs to replace their
older chassis, but the company would soon hit financial troubles
before multiple cars could be built. Spice's final chassis was
finished in 1993, at which time the World Sportscar Championship
had been canceled and IMSA was bringing in a new set of rules for
open-cockpit sportscars in 1994. However, even though Spice no
longer built new cars, many teams took it upon themselves to adapt
existing Spice designs to the new regulations. Many chassis had
their roof removed to make them open-cockpit, and some of these
heavily modified designs would still be competitively racing until
1999.
During Spice's stint as the factory Pontiac team, they also
constructed several
Pontiac Fiero race
cars for the IMSA GTO and GTU classes, having some mixed success.
These would be the only Spices based on production cars instead of
purpose-built sports cars.
Later projects and demise
Following the collapse of the major sportscar championships in the
early 1990s, Spice planned to build its own road cars and race them
in the newer
GT championships. The
company also announced ambitious plans to create a
Formula One team in their new headquarters in
Australia. However, the plan never got off
the ground, and Spice soon closed.
Successes
Both as a team and as a constructor, Spice had considerable success
during their racing career through the 1980s and into the
1990s.
Team championships and wins
- Note: IMSA did not award a teams championship during the
period that Spice raced
Constructor championships and wins
- World Sportscar
Championship - 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992
- IMSA GT Championship -
1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
- 24 Hours of Le Mans (class wins) - 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991
- 24 Hours of Daytona (class
wins) - 1987, 1991, 1992, 1994
Foot notes
- "Spice plans bizarre F1 programme" GrandPrix.com,
06 February 1995. Retrieved 11 March 2007
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