1988 Spice SE 88 Buick

Spice was a very successful race car constructor of C2 cars for the World Sportscar Championship, during the late 80's and early 90's.

Formed in 1986 by successful BRDC members and sportscar drivers, Gordon Spice and Ray Bellm, they produced over 30 cars for the World Sports Car Championship in both C2 and latterly C1 classes as well as IMSA in the USA. Their major successes came in C2 where they were World Champions in 1985, 1987 and 1988 as well as class winners at Le Mans in '85, '87 and '88 and winners of Daytona in '87.

This particular car, chassis 88- 002, was originally built for IMSA racing in the USA where it took part between 1988 and 1991 in races at Daytona, Sebring, Road Atlanta, West Palm, Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, Columbus, Watkins Glen, Road America, Del-Mar and Topeka. It was driven by regular IMSA GT drivers, such as Schubot and Ludemann - Ken Knott and Jim Pace - Carlos Bobeda and Andy Evans, it was a frequent class winner and successful participant.

Purchased by our vendor in 2006 for racing in Europe, the car was then completely rebuilt and restored to original specification, finally being finished in 2009. This documented work was carried out by highly respected race team, Damax UK, and included a rebuilt chassis, as well as an engine and Hewland gearbox rebuild. Also new crack tested uprights were fitted, along with new wishbones, new dampers, a new wiring harness throughout, new fuel system, new brakes and finally a complete repaint.

The car went on to win its class at the support race to the main Le Mans event in 2010 and also raced competitively at both Spa and Brands-Hatch that year.

In 2011 it raced competitively at the Silverstone Classic to 3rd in class, a feat it repeated at Brands later the same year.

Since then the Buick V6 4.5 litre engine has been refreshed by Todd Hurtle and confirmed to give in excess of 500bhp with solid reliability. In 2012 the car took part in just one race at Donington Park, so remains fresh and on the button -and ready to race again in 2013.

The popularity of races for ex World Sports Cars remains strong and this car is potentially eligible for all current series at a reasonable entry level price and reasonably straightforward to both drive and run.