Quezon in motorsport

Throughout it's history and since its inception as a road car manufacturer, Quezon has been famously (and infamously) competing in a variety of motorsport series throughout the years, from sportscar racing and rallying, drag racing, touring car racing, stock car racing, and famously in open-wheel Formula racing.

Quezon is currently involved in Formula One, NASCAR, NHRA, WEC, WRC, IMSA, Formula Three, Formula Four, as well as various other GT3 and TCR classes.

## Drag racing

The first mass production Quezon, the 1965 Coupe, stemmed from the 60s drag racing scene within the Philippines, similar to that in the United States. The most popular cars during that time were commonly American vehicles with large engines, though smaller cars and owner-type Jeepneys were frequently seen racing alongside, but unable to beat their American counterparts. This all changed when Marcelo Rodriguez, a drag racer of the time, commissioned Ricardo Quezon to build him a few locally-designed and manufactured cars with the potential of beating out foreign counterparts. This gave birth to the Quezon Coupe, a 2-door car with heavy resemblance to equivalent American cars of the era, powered ironically by an American-made Sisten V8. The Quezon Coupe was largely successful, and came to earn the nickname "Laguna" for winning many races with it, with Quezon later adopting it as its official name.

## Formula One

##### *See also: QuezonRacing (Formula One team) and Scuderia Quezon*

After the sourness of NASCAR and being invited on a business trip in 1969 to France, Ricardo Quezon found a particular interest in Formula One motor racing. As his trip coincided with the French Grand Prix in July of that year, he ended up watching the race and found how Formula One could potentially be used to promote the Quezon name elsewhere. He got a hold of his contacts in that same year and made a plan to participate in Formula One for the 1970 season. He would utilize one of the winning engines of the era and base his chassis off a formerly dominant car. Plan in mind, he established the Quezon Formula One team in December 1969. Quezon appointed <placeholder> to run the team along with him.

Quezon's first Formula One victory came in 1970, after a relatively mundane early season, French-American driver Jacques Alberts at the hands of the QF701 car during the United States Grand Prix had begun to show promising results after some tweaks to the car. With some other cars retiring during the course of the race due to mechanical issues, the Quezon took the win and the company scored their first in a long line of F1 victories.

## Rallying

Quezon was particularly well-known locally for rallying, as a number of privateers had entered Cordovas and SRs into local rallies, occasionally winning some.

Quezon's own attempt at a manufacturer-backed entry into rallying came in the form of the 1981 Cordova Turbo rallycar, a Group B silhouette car with a body based on the 1979 Quezon Cordova. The car never made it to the world stage as one of the four prototypes were destroyed in an accident during testing at the 1983 Philippine International Rally, killing its driver, former Quezon F1 driver Josefino Quezon, along with it. This accident put an end to Quezon's rallying efforts in that same year, and eventually led to the shutting down of Quezon's Formula One team.

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