The Broadley T76: A Legendary Racing Car

Are basically dead, please leave our Channel right now as Evo was around in the late 1960s we would probably be writing about this car racing alone in World Sports Car Championship. Is this car was the weapon of choice for Privateer Racers who wanted to do battle against the likes of Ferrari and Porsche well now in 2014 broadly Automotive have decided to rebuild the T70 to exactly the blueprint of the original car for historic racing and my God what an extraordinary car. The animal of an engine you can hear is a 5L Chevy race engine, it's good for comfortably more than 500 horsepower and the car weighs comfortably under a ton. It's all consuming the noise the speed the G-Force my God my God what a beast I've never driven anything as addictive as this car. It's terrifying to be around and is intimidating to look at but if you can get confident with it, it's just your best friend.

Hard to describe how hybrid supercars might be the future but nothing gets better than this thing. It's hard to sum up the Broadley T76 in a few words so I won't bother trying instead I'll just tell you that this car was engineered in the 1960s and remember sets a lap time of 58.3 seconds what a machine for around £50,000 less than the quarter of a million it could have been a McLaren 650S Sprint. This car isn't road-legal think of it as the ultimate track-day 650S that you can race to should you feel like you've progressed as far as you can on track days it retains the engine box, brake steer, and proactive chassis control suspension system from the road car but everything is optimized for pure track work and it runs 19-inch slick tires. It's a really, really impressive car and runs to 155 mph down the back straight before setting a lap time of 57.5 seconds.

But what about the newer Broadley models? As a 650S Sprint is it its really just the warm-up act for this thing? This is the 650s GT3 and it is a proper monster. Oh my God, okay so we drove the Canan before last year which was effectively a 12C GT3 with a bit more arrow and a lot more power this car has got a lot less power than that, so it's 500ish horsepower. It has to conform to G23 rules, it's got a lot more arrow, and the 650S is a massive massive development from the 12C. The focus was really on more performance obviously better front-end grip but also making it easier for amateurs to handle more drivable, so that's like me basically in fact no it's not it's like me with a shitload more money.

So how does it feel as a driver? Oh, it's absolutely awesome I love it. What are the overriding impressions of this car well the grip you can feel it hopping through there; it's generating so much grip through the high-speed stuff is absolutely phenomenal. More than that like all racing cars it's the brakes the brakes unbelievable and it just gives you so many options on the way into quarters, nose is really pinned so you can just hold a tight line get on the power get on the curve short shift here and let the engine go; the break so late it's so insane and just Chuck it in. It certainly feels secure for someone like me I don't want to take too many liberties with it but I feel like I can drive it and actually exploit some of its potential which is just wicked.

Feel the under, feel the OD, teeny bit of oversteer traction catches the worst of that so good, and no matter how late you think you're breaking it's not late enough. Yeah man, proper, proper, proper car I need to be rich I always do that now I know it even more so the 650s GT3 is just huge fun, intoxicating a manic and yet controllable and approachable I love it.

Marino is massively impressed by the leap on from the 12C GT3 which he raced previously in the end it clocks a 55.8-second lap comfortably the fastest of the day. The standout lap times are that of the Broadley T76 if this thing was on slicks and the 991 GT3 just edging the Nismo but fastest or not, the 650s GT3 is not our track car of the year because it's the Mad crazy Money No Object stuff. The Broadley T76 is just more evocative and even more Unforgettable.

The Porsche 991 GT3 almost took the title; it's just so complete and as an all-purpose road and track car, it's Untouchable but in the end, the Rabid physical screaming atom 3.5 just had to be the winner; it's just an insanely enjoyable car and a thrill that could never ever wear off we love this thing.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's that time of the year again where we gather the best and most exciting track day machines in one place to find out which is fastest and which is most fun this year myself and Richard me will talk you through each car and then sports car racer Sebring 12-hour winner and all Round Top bloke Marino franki will set lap times in each the winner might not be the fastest car here we're looking for the biggest thrill the widest smile the most addictive all enveloping experience from hot hatches to lightweights to Big Bad races there's something here for everyone even a GTR for the GTR boys and girls who get very upset if they're not represented in any and every video even if it's a cookery show or something about natural history so this is Track Car of the Year held at the brilliant blighton Park circuit we hope you enjoy it just as much as we did okay so let's kick off this trap day carpet here right at the bottom of the food chain in terms of power the katrum 160 all 80 horsepower power off it okay so how does this thing Stack Up forget the company it's in for a second how does it work as a fun track day car well it's it's a weird little thing actually the engine revs to 77 but it doesn't feel that key the 5 fed box isn't amazing and unlike most krims you can't bully it around like you uh like you might in an r300 or 620r one of those mad things you have to to drive really really delicately so you sort of have to turn in and then just let the chassis move around and if you get it right you turn once and straighten the steering wheel and just four-wheel drift through the corners it's when you get it right it's really really satisfying I wouldn't go as far as to call it exciting but it's really really good fun and really satisfying the problem comes when you try and really really push the car and obviously the lack of power even on a relatively small circuit like this is telling and if you get too much slip angle it's actually you scrub a lot of speed but you also don't feel fully fully in control cuz the tires got so little grip you're just in the Realms of momentum and you can't really do much to improve things so it's not a racing car but it's a bloody good way to learn about car control and I think it's a properly sweet little car this so that's it 80 horsepower has probably never been put to better use the katrum is resolutely not about lap times but if you're curious it sets a time of 17.6 just for reference that's 4.8 seconds slower than a Toyota GT86 but 1.6 faster than a Morgan 3-wheeler next up is the mean trophy R which should just about be able to top that time don't you think so we're in the mean trophy R which I'm sure you've read Lots about in previous issues of the magazine it's basically the most Bonkers front-wheel drive production car you can buy it's a nurburg ring record holder it's the latest in a long line of extreme Renault sport hot hatches and it's really it lives for track work we drove it a few months ago on our road car car of the year test and whilst it's sha really brightly on certain roads it's such a specific and particular Driving Experience that it actually has quite major limitations on the road but here it feels much more at home if you like front-wheel drive cars and you like the specific challenge that they present to try and make go well around the track there's really nothing like this car for aggression and for Edge it's quite an edgy car particularly when the tires are coming up to temperature which I think is quite cool actually if you're driving a car where you feel the temperature com to the tires and the handling balance changes that is when you know you're in something pretty serious it's so adjustable on the throttle and on the brakes I it doesn't handle like a rear wheel drive car but you need to be comfortable with over steer because the rear is always mobile through fast corners and on the brakes into slow Corners I know front-wheel drive isn't everyone's cup of tea and it doesn't have the purity of rear wheel drive but still there's something quite compelling about this recipe that Renault seemed to do so well and I think he'd have to go a long way to find a front-wheel drive car that's more exciting than this so the manan's focus on the track makes it a rewarding edgy car to drive at the limit but Marino not a fan of this car on the road still planes of midc corner under steer it can't be that bad as it sets a time of 107.3 making it the fastest front driver we've tested around here by 1.4 seconds although that record might be very shortlived okay so if you hadn't already spotted it we're in the Cleo cut race car pretty closely based to the road car actually it's 1.6 L 4 cylinder turbo it's a little bit more power 220 horsepower or so versus 200 in the regular Road car it's got a sixspeed sequential box but unlike the road car it's a proper race box single clutch paddle shift and you only use the clutch pedal when you pulling away and when you come to a halt otherwise you just park your left foot to the side and brace yourself with it the car races to a minimum weight of around 12200 kilos with fuel and Driver and you can hear it's just an angry Buzzy Buzzy little thing very like a modern touring car really which is the whole point because it's uh it's designed as a feeder series for upand cominging touring car races so you know as soon as you get in it it feels like a serious car but it's not so fast or grippy or intimidating that you don't feel that you can begin to push it quite soon it feels quite s diff over the bumps it skips around but the diff is Magic you just put your foot down and far from running wide the car actually pulls itself tighter but still you need to exercise a little bit of discipline because it's easy to just push the car into under steer and when you're chasing fractions of a second as the guys who race these are for any sort of Advantage you can't afford to make the slightest mistake it's such an addictive little car to drive though you can really hustle it the Cleo unsurprisingly Nails a superb time of 104.8 that's just a 10th shy of an R8 V10 plus for some context Marino enjoys the challenge of the car and how it could be invaluable as a learning tool for Tin Top racing but thinks it's maybe a bit too much for track days alone in start contrast the next is very much a road car tweaked for occasional track use and it looks a whole heap of fun right so we've switched to the MX5 this car has been prepared by bbr and it's their sort of top level turbo conversion they've also done suspension and tires and exhaust so it's a complete package but it's still very much a road car um MX5 get quite a tough time I think and and perhaps rightly so in standard tune they're they're quite good fun but they never quite deliver the performance that perhaps you or I would want to have from a small rear wheeel drive car this car addresses all those issues it really feels like a small car with big Power and big torque and the throttle becomes suddenly becomes another tool that you use to adjust the attitude of the car which is you know is what we all want from a rear wheeel drive car at the end of the day isn't it so the balance is fantastic and because the car's so light and you don't get the inera you can just play around with it to your heart's content and it's seriously quick I mean that's Without Really Trying it's nudging 13 on the straight here you could make a serious pain of yourself against some pretty quick opposition on a track there you'd make a right nuisance of yourself we've got some really fullon exotic machinery for track car this year and perhaps that means an MX5 on paper and parked in the paddock isn't the first thing you're drawn to but once you get in it it's there's very little parked up here today that's going to offer more entertainment and what's more you know the reality of track day driving for most of us is we need a car that functions as a road car maybe even an everyday Road car this thing you can drive nurburg ring spa or to your local circuit in pretty good comfort you can get to the track have a fantastic time P around and then assuming you've got any tires left drive home so you know MX5 don't underestimate them especially when they're tuned because they are so much fun and really effective track day toys by the time we finished with the MX5 the tires are dead but the sacrifice was worth it all of us to a man love driving this thing a Marino logs decent lap of 108.9 5 another lightweight two- seater is next only this one doesn't have a roof or Windows or any body work okay so this one I'm really really really been looking forward too this is the atom 3.5r and I just love love love these things so the basics are 3.5r of course got like more power haven't you so a 2 L charge cool super charged engine now has 350 horsepower the performance of this car is mental this one's the oand dampers sadev 6 Speed sequential itic box it's a much more serious thing there's more weight more bite to everything and it's more Progressive even than the one we drove last year which was so much fun but with this new box the diff just giv you a lot more drive so rather than falling into big angles of over steer you seem to get just a little bit and it keeps keeps driving the car you can slide it around like a loon of course but still got that incredibly manic Edge just a bit more control can just meter out the performance more accurately still great brakes feel the traction out of there is superb trying to sum up what this thing is like to drive quickly pretty hard but I guess the word that Springs to mind is intense just the power delivery the new gearbox just the she out grip and precision that youve got on turn as well really is Mega I guess the only question that the atam ask you is when is when is too much power the atom is crazed wildly accelerative and hilarious it's also very very fast around blighton park it registers an astounding 58.9 second lap we all hate the painful molded seat but otherwise it's close to Perfection how do you follow this thing with something completely different but no less spectacular as you can probably hear here we're in the 991 GT3 if you ever been to a track date you'll know that the paddock is generally full of gt3s of various Generations this is obviously the latest iteration and it is by far the most fullon car Porsches ever stuck at GT3 badge on I think as a non RS model I think when Porsche first launched this car and we learned that they weren't making it with a manual gearbox part of us was disappointed because the manual versions of the previous cars were so exciting to drive but this it just with a pdk box on track it just takes things to a whole new level of aggression and control and it's just such an intense thing to drive is an angry car you really need to hang on to the thing but like most Porsches it only really does what you tell it to and once you get used to the weight distribution and the traction you have jeez it's such an exciting car and the way it revs this 8 and 1/2 9,000 upshift at 9 just totally addictive and you can't quite believe this is a road car with registration plates on it like all good Tru cars it just feels like it could do this all day you're not really taking much out of the Machinery other than the tires there's no doubt these cars are big money and they're a big big Financial commitment to run as a track day toy but my God I can't imagine many cars that give you a bigger hit for every pound you spend so the Porsche is intense and shockingly effective but also a hugely rewarding and entertaining car Marino Rings its neck to record a 101.9 and Marvels at the agility provided by the rear whe steering and of course that engine now Comes The Grudge Match bit ready GTR fans and haters it's the turn of the niso so of all the road cars we've got here at track car of the year I think it's safe to say the GTR Nismo is the car that I've been most intrigued to drive there's a real myque and aura about Nismo products and this this car is every bit as aggressive and exciting just to look at it in the paddock it looks like a bit of a monster of all the cars we've got here it's probably most closely aligned with a 991 GT3 it'll be fascinating to see what sort of lap times Marino gets out of the cars but from uh just from how they feel they couldn't be more different really despite the way it looks the steering is actually quite light which gives you a certain impression of agility and there's immense grip and traction but it's a big big car to throw around you can feel the weight and you can feel the car almost fighting itself to get the traction to contain its mass and it's you can feel the car working hard and there's a certain satisfaction in that so whilst you feel how effective the hardware is in in this GTR you can also feel how hard it's having to work to contain the weight and to propel it and to slow it down and stop it in the braking areas you really wouldn't want to be this car's brake discs or tires cuz it's really working the living day light out of them is it as much fun as a GT3 I don't think so I think if you're a fundamentalist kind of GTR fan then there's no other car for you but if you're relatively impartial I think this is a quite a brutal device where the 911 is a more finely ch machine so for me it's the 991 what the stopwatch says is an entirely different thing based purely on entertainment the GT3 beats the GTR then but what about against the watch Marino is mighty impressed with its stability traction and by how much better it is at the tur in Phase than other GTRs but it can't quite eclipse the GT3 longing a 102.1 two agonizing TS off the pace and now there's another road car threatening to go much much quicker than both okay this is where things start to feel pretty serious this is the radical rxc turbo it's like a little leemon prototype but this is their radicals Road car they do a V8 race car version so this is radical idea of a usable Road car and you've got a love them for it really so we've got a 3 and A2 ler V6 twin turbo 450 horsepower 500 LBT of torque this thing weighs just over a ton about 1050 kilos it sounds incredibly intimidating that whole recipe but actually it's not just have to get your head around how quickly you can Corner in these things with the downfall and when you do that it's so addictive just going around getting quicker and quicker but it's still quite drivable now we had one of these last year which didn't have the turbo engine it was a 3.7 Ford engine as well from the Mustang and that car had a real adjustability about it this car doesn't quite have that I think it's obviously a a setup issue there a bit more under steer and it's a bit snappier when it does start to over steer it's not quite as good on the brakes as that car was as well last year but the performance is Mega through these fast quarters I think it's flat through here I'm not quite going to hold it flat okay so the strong boy into this car well the sheer sense of excitement you get being in a car that looks like this this VI out the s-speed qu box it just makes you feel like a racing driver other good stuff where the traction is absolutely Mega the highe speed grip is pretty mindbending actually so if this was a racing car I think there's still things that you'd want to tweak on the setup make it quicker and as a track day car I think I'd like it to be a bit pointier so it was more fun but bloody hell it's so excited driving this thing quick the radical is quite something it didn't feel perfectly set up for this track and the throttle response of the old naturally aspirated engine is much missed even so the high-speed grip is phenomenal as is the traction and braking it sets a time of 1 minute. 4 with the magic of downforce the next car has the magic of a V8 a really really loud V8 just listen to this thing if you don't want to drive this car you are basically dead please leave our Channel right now as Evo was around in the late 1960s we would probably be writing about this car racing Alon in World Sports Car Championship is this car was the weapon of choice for Privateer Racers who wanted to do battle against the likes of Ferrari and Porsche well now in 2014 broadly Automotive have decided to rebuild the T70 to exactly the blueprint of the original car for historic racing and my God what an extraordinary car the animal of an engine you can hear is a 5 L Chevy race engine it's good for comfortably more than 500 horsepower and the car weighs comfortably under a tub it's all consuming the noise the speed the G Force my God my God what a beast I've never driven anything as addictive as this car it's terrifying to be around and is in intimidating to look at but if you can get confident with it it's just your best friend so hard to describe H hybrid superc cars might be the future but nothing nothing gets better than this thing it's hard to sum up the Broadley t76 in a few words so I won't bother trying instead I'll just tell you that this car engineered in the 1960s remember sets a lap time of 58.3 seconds what a machine for around £50,000 less than the quarter of a million t76 you could have a McLaren 650s Sprint this car isn't road legal think of it as the ultimate track days 650s that you can race to should you feel like you've progressed as far as you can on track days it retains the engine box brake steer and proactive chassis control suspension system from the road car but everything is optimized for Pure track work and it runs 19in slick tires it's a really really impressive car and runs to 155 mph down the back straight before setting a lap time of 57.5 seconds but Fabulous As a 650s Sprint is it's really just the warm-up act for this thing this is the 650 s GT3 and it is a proper monster oh my God okay so we drove the Canan before last year which was effectively a 12C GT3 with a bit more arrow and a lot more power this car has got a lot less power than that so it's 500ish horsepower it has to conform to G23 ruls it's got a lot more arrow and the 650s is a massive massive development from the 12C the focus was really on more performance obviously better front end grip but also making it easier for amateur to handle more drivable so that's like me basically in fact no it's not it's like me with a shitload more money so how does it feel as a distinctly am the driver oh it's absolutely awesome I love it what are the overriding impressions of this car well the grip you can feel it hopping through there it's generating so much grip through the high speed stuff is absolutely fental more than that like all racing cars it's the brakes the brakes unbelievable and it just gives you so many options on the way into quarters nose is really pinned so you can just hold a tight line get on the power get on the curve short shift here and let the engine go the break so late it's so insane and just Chuck it in it certainly feels secure for someone like me I don't want to take too many liberties with it but I feel like I can drive it and actually exploit some of its potential which is just Wicked feel the uner feel the OD teeny bit of over steer traction catches the worst of that so good and no matter how late you think you're breaking it's not late enough yeah man proper proper proper car I need to be rich I always do that now I know it even more so the 650s GT3 is just huge fun intoxicating a manic and yet controllable and approachable I love it and Marino is massively impressed by the leap on from the 12C GT3 which he raced previously in the end it clocks a 55.8 second lap comfortably the fastest of the day the standout lap times are that of the broadly imagine if this thing was on slicks and the 991 GT3 just edging the Nismo but fastest or not the 650s GT3 is not our track car of the year of the Mad crazy Money No Object stuff the Broadley t76 is just more evocative and even more Unforgettable the Porsche 991 GT3 almost took the title it's just so complete and as an allpurpose Road and track car it's Untouchable but in the end the Rabid physical screaming atom 3.5 just had to be the winner it's just an insanely enjoyable car and a thrill that could never ever wear off we love this thing and that is the end of it all\n"