Group 44

Group 44 Incorporated was an American motor racing team and motorsports marketing business founded in 1965 by the driver Bob Tullius with the mechanic Brian Fuerstenau and the advertising executive Dick Gilmartin, who left in the first year. It earned its living three ways: racing its own cars, building racing cars for paying customers, and running a marketing and sponsorship department for vehicle manufacturers and racing teams. For most of its life it was tied to British Leyland, first fielding Triumph TR and Spitfire models and later MG and Jaguar cars, and for a time almost all of British Leyland's marketing in the United States went through it. It entered two Jaguar XJR-5 cars at Le Mans in 1984, the first Jaguar entry there in 27 years. After losing the Jaguar prototype program to Tom Walkinshaw Racing it prepared three Audi 200 Quattros for the Trans Am Series, where Hurley Haywood won the 1988 drivers' title. Group 44 closed in 1990 when its last sponsorship contract expired, having won 14 national SCCA championships, three Trans Am titles and more than 300 races.