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The Romano WE84 is an Australian designed and built, mid-engined closed top racing car built to CAMS Group A Sports Car specifications. The car began its life as the Kaditcha K583 when it first appeared in the 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship and was built by the Queensland based Kaditcha owner and former McLaren engineer Barry Lock after he was approached by Brisbane accountant, property developer, timber mill owner and former speedway racer Bap Romano in 1981 with the idea of building a Le Mans type coupe. When the car first appeared in 1983, it was the first closed top Sports Car seen in Australia and looked like an FIA Group C Sports Car (such as the Porsche 956). This led to the false belief that it was built to the Group C regulations Bap Romano's ultimate ambition was to take the car to the famous 24 Hour French classic in an All-Australian challenge. Although this did not happen, going on its qualifying performance of the car at the 1984 Sandown 1000 race as part of the 1984 World Endurance Championship held at Melbourne's Sandown Raceway against the FIA Group C Sports Cars, the Romano, with some minor modifications to bring it up to FIA specs, would not have been out of place in Group C2 at Le Mans. Even in 2014, 31 years after its competition debut and 28 years since it was retired from competition, the Romano remains one of Australia's most iconic, fastest, and popular race cars, and is generally regarded as the second fastest Australian built sports car, behind only to the Group C and IMSA spec Veskanda-Chevrolet built in 1985 by K&A Engineering in Adelaide. ==Build== Bap Romano travelled to England in December 1981 and purchased a 3.0L Cosworth DFV V8 engine (engine no. DFV 088) from John Nicholson of Nicholson McLaren Engines. The engine itself had actually been used in Formula One during the season by the McLaren team in the hands of John Watson and a young Alain Prost. While in England Romano was introduced to the Works Manager at Tyrrell Racing, Neil Davis. Davis took an interest in Romano's plans for the car and the two formed a friendship that saw the K583's suspension designed around components of the 1981 Tyrrell 010 Formula One car. Romano had chosen the Cosworth for its proven reliability in racing against the best alternative at the time, the 5.0L Chevrolet V8 Formula 5000 engine, which also carried more weight than the DFV (CAMS Group A Sports Car engines were limited to 5000cc capacity until the end of 1985). When purchased the engine was reportedly producing @ 9,450 rpm and was rebuilt to be able to run for 2,000 racing miles. This compared to the DFV's used in Grand Prix racing that were rated at approximately and required a rebuild after just 350 miles, or the equivalent of one Grand Prix weekend. By mid-1982 the car was built with full ground effects aerodynamics and was ready for testing. The car proved quick in testing and the engine was as strong as expected, but the suspension was proving suspect, breaking numerous times under the heavy load generated by the ground effects. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Romano WE84」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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