The fast-paced world of motorsport is about using innovation, advanced technology, strategic set-up of motorsport gears, and driver skill to drive faster, harder and more successfully than anyone else.
Some cars are good enough to score points or place a driver on the podium, others are good enough to reach pole position or win a race. Rarely, some of them can win enough races to win a world championship.
However, the rarest breed of race car out there is a car that changes the sport itself, either by being too good or highlighting a potential loophole in the rules that could make a car unbeatable. Here are some examples.
Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R
A touring car so good it killed the division it entered, the car that became simply known as “Godzilla” was designed to beat the Porsche 959. It took 25 seconds off of the production car lap record of the Nurburgring and dominated the touring car championships in both Japan and Australia.
Both championships would dissolve and the championships that replaced them would ban both four-wheel drive and turbochargers, the two pieces that had made Godzilla so devastating.
Williams-Renault FW14B
The most advanced Formula One car ever made, the FW14B changed the entire championship in its own image after Nigel Mansell dominated the 1992 season, with the 1993 season seeing a grid of cars filled with considerable amounts of electronics.
Concerns about expenses, safety hazards with the new hydraulic systems and traditionalist complaints about “driver aids” led to a sweeping ban of the technologies for 1994, which through circumstances debated to this day allowed Michael Schumacher’s Benetton to win.
Penske PC-23
Often known simply as “The Beast” in Indycar circles, the Penske PC-23 was one of the most dominant cars ever developed, but perhaps its most stunning game-changing moment was the setup it ran at the Indianapolis 500.
Due to a gap in the rules between the Indy 500 race and the open-wheel race authority CART, Penske arrived at the Month of May with a car with an alleged 1000 brake-horsepower engine known as the Mercedes-Benz 500I that had been constructed completely in secret.
Not only was the car banned, but the uproar its dominant success caused was also a factor in the American open-wheel racing split, where for over a decade CART and the Indy Racing League ran completely separate seasons.