In french there is a saying, “Jamais deux sans trois” so here is our third and final #MotorsportFail, well at the moment because we’ve looked at the WSC Championship but there might be others and of course, motorsport is full of project that never happened.

Anyway, this time we are talking about another of these privateer team, Brun Motorsport GmbH. Founded by driver Walter Brun in 1983 as a World Sportscar Championship team when the Group C regulations was reaching its peak, Brun Motorsport was one of the happy few to receive the Porsche 956 as a privateer. Success was there and the team would go on to win the 1986 WSC championship with the 956 evolution, the Porsche 962.

In 1991 after years of success and with the new 3.5 liters formula to be introduced for the 1992 WSC as well as Brun Motorsport closing its Formula One activities known under the EuroBrun name at the end of 1990, Walter and his team started working on a car of their own design. Repsol YPF, the main backer of the team decided to finance it.

Chassis was to be a carbon fibre monocoque with double wishbones and inboard front suspension. The rear would be the same except that the suspension would sit outboard next to the rear wheels, a trick seen on the Chaparral 2K Indycar for example and done in order to maximize the tunnel size. The car was pretty conventional in its form and thought as a “customer car”. Packaging and monocoque were both made to suit any sort of configuration. Cooling was at the front rather than on the side of the chassis in order to provide the space for turbos at the back as an example.

On the engine side, it was designed for the Neotech V12 F1 engine that Brun had signed for the 1990 Formula One season but which never happened. He then reverted and reached an agreement with another partner from the Formula One days, Engine Developments, the company behind the famous Judd engines. The F1 EV V8 would be the engine for the car, the exact same as those in Formula One with a little adjustment to suit the long distance races.

Looking at the aerodynamics, nothing was really spectacular, low bodywork, high downforce and that rear wing, so typical of that period even if it did not look right, as if it had been put on instead of the traditional one single plane one.

On track, the car was debuted at the 1991 fifth round of the WSC season, the Nürburgring as Konrad did with the KM-011. Gregor Foitek and Oscar Larrauri the two former EuroBrun Formula One racing drivers debuted the car but after qualifying the car was retired. The next round being in magny-Cours, Jesus Pareja replaced Foitek and the car did start the race only to retire after five laps.

Next round was the fly-away Mexico City round where the C91 lasted 31 laps before retiring with starter motor issues. In Autopolis, it failed again after 20 laps when the gearbox broke. Unfortunatelly, the car didn’t score any points during its first season, Brun continued racing his Porsche 962 alongside the C91 and he did score everywhere except in Magny-Cours and Suzuka. The project was on its way, but once again and as for many others, the funding for 1992 failed to materialize and the C91 would be retired putting an end to Brun Motorsport and its presence in the World Sportscar Championship.

A sad end for the team but still, the C91 never finished but proved to be a better car on track than the Konrad. So let’s say that they succeeded in a way !

The Dude.