The Toyota 88C was a racing car entered by

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

from 1988 to 1989. It is the successor to the Toyota 87C and the predecessor to the Toyota 88C-V. Like other Toyota-powered

sports prototype A sports prototype, sometimes referred to as simply a prototype, is a type of race car that is used in the highest-level categories of sports car racing. These purpose-built racing cars, unlike street-legal and production-based racing cars, are n ...

s of the era, it was designed and built by Dome. The 88C is an evolution of the 87C, both models sharing the same chassis number designation. The 88Cs competed in the

All Japan Sports Prototype Championship The , abbreviated as JSPC, formed by the Japan Automobile Federation, was a domestic championship which took place in Japan for Group C and IMSA GTP prototype cars and also featured cars that were eligible for touring car racing in its earlier y ...

, the World Sports-Prototype Championship, and the North American Camel GT Championship.

Racing history

All Japan Sports Prototype Championship

The 88C made its debut in the 1988 All Japan Sports Prototype Championship, with a two-cars program fielded by Toyota Team

Tom's is a factory supported racing team and tuner of Toyota and Lexus vehicles. The name stands for Tachi Oiwa Motor Sport. Their head office is located in Tokyo, Japan. They are currently heavily involved with Super GT, Super Formula and Super Form ...

achieving two fifth places as best results (Suzuka 500 km and Suzuka 1000 km).

Le Mans

Two 88Cs were entered by Toyota Team

at the

1988 24 Hours of Le Mans The 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 56th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 11 and 12 June 1988. It was also the fifth round of the World Sports-Prototype Championship season. Race The Porsches were able to turn up the turbo boost in q ...

. Both cars completed the event with the car of drivers Geoff Lees,

Masanori Sekiya is a racing car driver, most famous for being the first Japanese driver to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 1995. Sekiya drove in single-seaters in his early career, contesting the Japanese Formula 3000 Championship and Formula Nippon from 1987 ...

, and

Kaoru Hoshino Kaoru Hoshino (21 September 1947 – 21 November 2022) was a Japanese racing driver. He was active in the Toyota works team Toms from its inception, driving the Toyota Corolla and Toyota Starlet. He was mainly active in touring car racing, and al ...

finishing in 12th, while the second car was 24th. Toyota returned to Le Mans in with one 88C joining two newer 89C-Vs. None of the three cars finished the race.

World Sports-Prototype Championship

Apart from the

and the 1988 1000 km of Fuji (also valid as final round of the 1988 JSPC), the 88C made a final WSPC appearance early in the 1989 season when Toyota Team Tom's entered a lone car at

Dijon-Prenois Dijon-Prenois is a motor racing circuit located in Prenois, near Dijon, France. The undulating track is noted for its fast, sweeping bends. Opened in 1972, Dijon-Prenois hosted the Formula One French Grand Prix five times, and the Swiss Grand ...

while awaiting their newer 89C-Vs. The 88C finished in fourth in the hands of Geoff Lees and

Johnny Dumfries John Colum Crichton-Stuart, 7th Marquess of Bute (26 April 1958 – 22 March 2021), styled Earl of Dumfries before 1993, was a Scottish peer and a racing driver, most notably winning the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans. He did not use his title a ...

Camel GT Championship

In 1989 Toyota and

All American Racers All American Racers is an American auto racing team and constructor based in Santa Ana, California. Founded by Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby in 1964, All American Racers initially participated in American sports car and Champ Car races as well a ...

entered the GTP category of

IMSA The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a North American sports car racing sanctioning body based in Daytona Beach, Florida under the jurisdiction of the ACCUS arm of the FIA. It was started by John Bishop, a former executive direc ...

's Camel GT Championship. One car was designed by AAR and entered as the

Eagle HF89 The Eagle HF89 and its evolution, the Eagle HF90, is a racing car built and entered by Dan Gurney's All American Racers team, for the IMSA GT Championship. It was raced from 1989 until 1991 in IMSA's premier sports-car racing category, the GTP (G ...

, while the second entry was a modified 88C. Both were powered by same turbocharged

inline-4 A straight-four engine (also called an inline-four) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The vast majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout (with the e ...

engine and produced approximately 600

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...

. The 88C-based car made its debut at the 1989

Daytona 24 Hours The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layou ...

race but retired from the event. Due to troubles with the HF89 car, the team concentrated its efforts on the 88C throughout the rest of the season. After the completion of the season AAR concentrated their efforts on the HF89 and the latter Mk.III. The best result was a second place at San Antonio and two pole positions at Road Atlanta and Lime Rock.

References

{{Toyota Sportscar Racers Group C cars IMSA GTP cars Toyota 88C 88C