You know an auction is good when the Ferrari F40 isn’t even the most interesting thing for sale.
This auction is for the cars of Team Taisan, a longtime privateer racing team in Japan—best called an institution, really. It started running Porsche Group C cars in the early 1980s, it has a GT3 class win at Le Mans, and has been in Super GT for years.
And if you of the time when Ferrari F40s raced in GT1, back in the 1990s, you may be thinking of a Team Taisan car. Yasutsune “Ricky” Chiba ran this red #40 car back in 1994. Recently it has been mounted to his ceiling.
Now it could be yours for... an unknown price.
Should you be the one to nab this race-winning ceiling car, you can also scoop up a spare engine. Price is also unlisted.
The other race cars in this auction are almost hard to believe. There is a street-plated 1997 Dodge Viper GTS-R from the Japanese Grand Touring Championship:
The Lola that finished eighth in the 1995 Indy 500 (selling without a motor):
A 996-generation Porsche 911 GT3-R that raced in Super GT in 2007, and a bunch of other interesting cars and parts.
But what really catches my eye is the 1991 Nissan R32 GT-R that was driven by Keiichi Tsuchiya:
He’s best known as the Drift King, but Tsuchiya has a lot of endurance racing under his belt, taking a class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in an NSX in 1995 and nearly taking the overall win in 1999 with the Toyota GT-One.
For sale here is Team Taisan’s first Godzilla, not the winningest GT-R (it placed second in the championship that year behind another GT-R) but one of the most iconic.
People lose their minds for these old Advan looks. This is the real deal period piece.
And also intriguing is this Dodge Viper drift car with some history in America, as tipster Paulo Acoba pointed out in an email to us:
The names on the door are Tarzan Yamada and Rocky & Ricky. Tarzan Yamada did demo drift runs in this Viper and judged during the early days of D1GP AND Formula Drift when they held events simultaneously here. It’s missing the large Benihana decal as seen linked here(yes, the steakhouse) hence the Rocky on the door standing for Rocky Aoki, founder of said steakhouse and sponsor of many American car teams. There are a couple of vids of Yamada drifting in America with this Benihana Viper on Youtube.
I can’t get over this auction, selling the real history that so many of this Radwood generation is currently remembering and recreating in tribute cars.
Again, find all the listings for cars and parts here.
(Hat tip to Paulo!)