In 1984, a tire company decided to move beyond advertising copy and prove its product on the world’s toughest stages. The result was an unusual motorsport program that put factory-style BFGoodrich T/A road tires on purpose-built prototypes and entered them in endurance series such as the IMSA GT Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship including the 24 Hours of Le Mans. What began as a promotional effort evolved into a notable racing achievement: a class victory at Le Mans and a continuing legacy embodied by two surviving cars, chassis HU-2 and HU-3 now headed to Mecum at Monterey in 2026.
The program’s core idea was simple but daring: demonstrate that retail-style tires could withstand endurance racing demands. To do that the team combined a then-modern prototype chassis with a compact rotary engine, ran an intensive test schedule, and campaigned the cars at major endurance races. The campaign’s engineering and operational choices linked consumer product development with high-profile motorsport exposure.
Building the racing program: chassis, engine and tire adaptation
The project was organized around the Lola T616 a prototype chassis selected by program manager and driver Jim Busby. Rather than using a conventional piston engine, the team installed Mazda’s 13B rotary — an 1.3-liter unit derived from the RX-7. That compact powerplant suited the lightweight prototype philosophy but also introduced trade-offs in power delivery and fuel consumption compared with larger engines in rival cars.
Key to the experiment was the decision to run essentially stock-profile street tires. The retail-design BFGoodrich T/A tread and compounds were retained, but the tyre molds were reshaped to match the regulatory wheel sizes of the prototypes: 13×11-inch at the front and 13×14-inch at the rear. A comprehensive 3,000-mile testing program preceded competition to validate durability and handling under extreme conditions.
Racing schedule and early results
Both cars contested the major endurance rounds that season, including classic American events at Sebring and Daytona. The program claimed a noteworthy technical first by using street-pattern tires on high-banked surfaces at Daytona. The team also scored a class victory at the Monza 1,000-kilometer race when HU-3 topped its category, setting the stage for the program’s Le Mans campaign.
Le Mans 1984 and the cars’ continuing story
At the 24 Hours of Le Mans the two-car entry produced a standout result. The #HU-2 car, driven by John MortonJohn O’Steen and Yoshimi Katayama secured the C2 class win and finished 10th The sister entry, piloted by team principal Jim Busby alongside Rick Knoop and Boy Hayje completed the race in third in class and 12th Those placings underscored that a compact rotary and road-tyre setup could compete reliably across an entire 24-hour endurance race.
Contemporaries noted that the 13B engine’s lower absolute power and modest fuel economy required conservative driving strategies and frequent attention to consumption management. The T616’s chassis, optimized for heavier engines, also masked some differences between the team’s road-derived rubber and rivals’ bespoke race tires. Still, the victory carried weight: it added to Mazda’s rotary pedigree that culminated in an
From competition to collection: restoration and auction
Both Lola T616 Mazdas survived the years and were reacquired and restored in the early 2000s by drivers involved with the program. They have since been regulars in vintage racing, preserving the tangible record of the experimental campaign. For Monterey 2026 the pair are consigned to Mecum Auctions. Estimates place HU-2 at roughly $300,000 with its sibling about $100,000 less—figures that reflect rarity, provenance and historic significance rather than modern performance potential.
The story remains notable for its unusual premise: a tire manufacturer using genuine road-tyre architecture in top-tier endurance racing. That blend of marketing, engineering testing and competitive racing is far less likely under today’s regulatory environment, which tends to restrict experimental crossover projects. As artifacts of a different era, the two T616s offer both motorsport historians and collectors a concrete connection to a campaign that bridged product development and endurance success.
