Arakawa Racing Co. Ltd. Anger 68R 1/24 Scale Model Kit Box Art

1968, the inaugural year for full autonomous in world sports car racing. Innovation took off early in Japan, where a field of 12 cars competed in the grueling Fuji 16 hour race. Only 3 cars finished, but the concept was proven. Arakawa's Anger 68R was a hasty autonomous retrofit with sensor pod mounted on a tube structure in the driver seating position. Primitive solid state electronics and processing was sufficient to keep the car running for the entire race, even in dark conditions, but by 1970, the sensor and navigation processing power would allow the average lap times to drop by huge margins.