I’ve always been fascinated in how the functional aesthetic of race cars transfers to design trends. The most obvious is how popular wings became a decade ago.
I’m very curious if the car above will have an impact. Excuse the grainy photo, it hasn’t been publicly unveiled and is completely bonkers. It’s the Nissan GT-RLM, to race at Le Mans next to the Audis that you see in the commercials. Except that the Nissan is front engine, front wheel drive with no rear wing and bigger wheels and tires in the front than the back. Moreover, we believe that the rear will taper off with a smaller width in the back than the front.
It’s certainly counter intuitive…the very basics of car handling mean that FWD is always at a major disadvantage since you have to ask the same 2 tires to accelerate, brake, and steer.
But Nissan has been into weird stuff lately with the delta wing, so maybe they just want to see how good they can get an FWD car so they can pump something useful into their FWD platform of products.
Back to the car, there’s a long more technical article about it for those interested in the motoring sports.
Some very interesting things, certainly no shortage of challenges. 1250hp through 28" of rubber? It’s basically a steamroller with a driver in tow…should be interesting.
The rear driveshaft setup seems super crazy - they basically offset the driveshaft so it doesn’t cut through the aero tunnel. Interesting to prioritize the aero so heavily over the mechanical complexity and weight penalty of those additional parts - that must have been an interesting design review meeting.
Cyberdemon: Weight is regulated. Today’s technology is so advanced, a good team will be able to build the car underweight and then add ballast.
The aero is the priority for winning at Le Mans. There are about 4 1.5mile long straights. An extra few mph will more than make up for losing a tad in the corners.