The RA272 is among Honda’s greatest achievements in motorsport, if only for its 14,000 RPM 1.5-liter V12 engine that sounds like heaven on earth. That engine, which was the most powerful on the F1 grid in 1965, secured Honda’s first win in the sport at the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix with Richie Ginther at the wheel. During the Tokyo Auto Salon earlier this month Honda trotted out some of its most iconic F1 cars and had Honda open wheel icon Takuma Sato drive them for the gathered masses in a quick exhibition run.
While the turbocharged V6 cars of the 1980s are perhaps better known to the modern day fan, the RA272 will always be the place it started. This magnificent little tube on wheels launched a decades-long commitment to racing for Honda. It is supremely cool that Taku-san’s decades-long commitment to Honda has earned him a place in the company’s history as well, slinking behind the steering wheel of some of the brand’s historic pillars.
There’s nothing quite like a multi-carbureted small-displacement 12-cylinder singing a tune, you know? While Taku running the car through its paces is wonderful to watch, it’s the mechanics warming up the engine with sharp staccato revs that really gets my gears turning. Zing, zing, zing, zing, each cylinder displacing just an eighth of a liter, 7.6 cubic inches. What a thing!
The car that Sato drove here is actually Ronnie Bucknum’s chassis, so not the car that won Honda’s first race, but an identical copy. He finished fifth in this car at the same Mexican Grand Prix, for his only points haul of the season. A bit less auspicious, but no less vee-twelvey and high revs. I love it all the same, and I’m sure Taku agrees.