Venturi 400 GT vs F40,
the Tsukuba duel

The ‘French F40’ against the real one

They called it ‘the French F40’. Hand-assembled, the Venturi 400 GT hides behind its two seats a 2,975 cc 24-valve PRV V6, twin-turbocharged by the engine builder EIA: 408 bhp, the highest output ever drawn from the Douvrin V6 in a production car. All that was left was to pit it against the real one.

That is what the Japanese video magazine Best Motoring did, in its July 1993 issue: at the Tsukuba circuit, north-east of Tokyo, eight sports cars for a seven-lap race. At the wheel of the Ferrari F40, Motoharu Kurosawa; in the Venturi, Akihiko Nakaya. We kept their duel, removed the Japanese voices and added a French commentary.

Seven laps at Tsukuba

The grid is formed by class, two cars per row: a Lamborghini Diablo on pole, and the two supercars, the F40 and the Venturi, side by side on the last row. Around them, a Honda NSX-R, a Nissan Skyline GT-R, two 911s — a Porsche Carrera RSR and a RUF BR2 — and a Toyota MR2 prepared by Zeek.

At the green light, the F40 leads out of the first corner, from the last row. Kurosawa will never lose the lead again: a lonely race, nobody in the mirror. Nakaya's start is rougher: he has to force his way through the pack. But on the straight, in the dry, the Venturi is formidable: it outdrags the Diablo and moves up to third; by the fourth lap, it is second.

Chequered flag: victory for the F40, and the Venturi second, ahead of six sports cars. The Diablo retires after a spin. And the Venturi sets its best lap on the seventh and final one: it was still getting faster at the end.

The stopwatch

Best Motoring publishes two tables at the end of the event. The first gives the result and each car's best lap in the race. The second, ‘Kurosawa time attack’, the time set by Motoharu Kurosawa alone on track at the wheel of each of the eight cars: the same driver throughout, so it is the car being compared.

SOURCE: BEST MOTORING (KODANSHA), JULY 1993 · ‘BATTLE RESULT & BEST LAP’ AND ‘KUROSAWA TIME ATTACK’ TABLES

In the race, the Venturi laps 0.98 s off the F40 and nearly a second ahead of the NSX-R. On Kurosawa's stopwatch the gap widens: 3.4 s, and the Venturi drops to fifth. The two exercises cannot be compared with each other — tyres, track and driver change — but each, taken on its own, says the same thing: the F40 is untouchable, and in the race, the Venturi is the car that comes closest.

The most powerful production PRV

The starting point is the ZPJ4, PSA's 24-valve with the ACAV variable intake from the Peugeot 605 SV24 and Citroën XM V6 24: about 200 bhp naturally aspirated. EIA grafts two Garrett turbochargers onto it, blowing up to 0.95 bar, with their intercoolers, and its own electronic injection. The result: 408 bhp at 6,000 rpm and 53 mkg — 520 Nm — at 4,500 rpm, more than double the original output.

No road-going PRV went higher. It is also the only one to combine the family's two extremes, 24-valve heads and twin turbocharging. The only other twin-turbo PRV sold as a production car, the Safrane Biturbo launched the same year, 1994, makes do with 12 valves and 268 bhp. Beyond that you have to leave the road: Venturi's 600 LM race car, about 600 bhp, and the record-breaking WM P88 at Le Mans, about 910 bhp. Venturi never stamped an engine code of its own: under the bonnet, it is still a ZPJ4.

The small manufacturer never used many engines: about 400 in all, according to the staff magazine of La Française de Mécanique, the Douvrin plant that assembled every PRV V6 and which closed its doors on 30 October. After the 200 and the 260, the 400 is its summit.

The 400 Trophy race car, the 400 GT road car

The 400 was a race car first. In 1992, Venturi launched the 400 Trophy for the Gentlemen Drivers Trophy, a one-make championship in which each driver bought a turnkey season: the factory took care of everything. Seventy-three cars left the works, almost all of them in the first year. The road-going 400 GT was only unveiled on 8 June 1994: a version derived from the race car, with two catalytic converters added, fifteen built in all, plus around ten Trophies converted for road use by the factory.

Same engine, same chassis, give or take: road homologation, the catalytic converters and 90 kg are what set them apart — the Trophy received a few lightened chassis panels. Facing them, the F40, launched in 1987:

SOURCES: L'AUTOMOBILE SPORTIVE (VENTURI 400 TROPHY AND 400 GT) · FERRARI (F40) · MANUFACTURERS' FIGURES

On paper, the F40 has 70 bhp and 57 Nm more than the 400 GT, and a better power-to-weight ratio. But at Tsukuba, a short, twisty circuit of constant braking and accelerating, the Venturi finishes less than a second a lap behind.

Which Venturi raced at Tsukuba?

A clarification, in all honesty. The Best Motoring issue dates from July 1993; the road-going 400 GT was only unveiled in June 1994. Nakaya's car is therefore not a production 400 GT: it is very probably a 400 Trophy — perhaps one of those converted for the road —, which Best Motoring simply calls ‘Venturi’. Same engine, same chassis: the differences are in the table above.

Do you know the story of that car, its chassis number or its importer in Japan? Tell us about it on the forum.

How we made the video

The original video runs 12 min 43 and follows all eight cars. We kept only the passages where the F40 and the Venturi are seen or talked about: about 4 min 40. The Japanese voices were removed by source separation, keeping the sound of the engines, tyres and circuit. Over it, a French commentary written by us, based on the pictures and the original commentary, voiced by synthetic voices.

The footage remains the property of Kodansha, publisher of Best Motoring, and is credited as such. The video is on PRV Concept's YouTube channel: subscribe so you don't miss the next ones.