On June 13th, the 2015 24 Hours of LeMans will begin, and there are two vehicles that have been making headlines for weeks now. One is the new Ford GT, which we assure you we will be following, and the other comes from, of all places, Nissan: the front-engined, front-wheel-drive hybrid GT-R LM Nismo. This thing is an engineer’s dream (nightmare?), and flies directly in the face of the traditional mid-engine, rear drive layout with both middle fingers held high. It’s no surprise that a turbocharged V6 is the main powerplant, but the KERS hybrid drivetrain system is certainly an eye-raiser, and the shape, designed by Ben Bowlby (of DeltaWing infamy) is essentially a tunnel surrounded by bodywork meant to keep the racer sucked down to the ground.
The overall idea behind the build was to not copy Audi’s successful R-series layout, and we will see just how successful they are once the green flag drops. In the meantime, get a listen to this thing blasting around NCM Motorsports Park during one of the track’s “private test” days. Two turbocharged V6s competing at LeMans…raise your hand if you ever expected to see the day.
Come on Nissan – build a street version of this baby!
But lose the humongous tail fin…..
Please oh please tell me you’re being sarcastic when it comes to this Nissan travesty CHMG . If not…. well ….. my respect for you just slipped a good ten points downwards … sigh …
This is when Leno annoys me . Playing the role of product placement industry shill under the guise of documentary / story !
Give Seinfeld credit … at least with his show you know its an Ad .. with him making fun of the fact that its an Ad .. rather than pretending to actually care about the car he’s featuring when in reality it is an Ad
As to the car ?
Get a freaking clue Nissan . Panoz has been there … done that .. and failed just as miserably as you’re about to . Christmas … first that joke of a narrow snout car that never stood a bats chance in Hades of ever accomplishing much of anything … and now this ludicrous Retro Mobile under the guise of being innovative and high tech
Yeah .. high tech alright … high tech for the late 50’s early 60’s that is
With high tech like this .. its no wonder Nissan/Renault is in such dire financial straights worldwide not to mention failing miserably in F1
Ghosen having gone down the Rabbit Hole of self delusion as well . Too bad .. he was for awhile the last of the good ones .
Say what you will, I like it. Of course I would prefer 8 or more cylinders, but, hey, still cool. As to the ad aspect as per Guitar Slingers comment, Jesus, who friggen cares, man, bitch moan, bitch moan.
As usual CC is off his meds. Interesting concept, will it be successful? Probably not. Some of us like to see new ideas and diversity in the cars racing, that’s what makes sports car racing interesting.
Btw the Panoz was not a failure, slugged it out for years with Porsche for class championships and had some nice victories . Also a huge crowd favorite at LeMans with the Euros.
Gotta love CC, hates NASCAR because it’s cookie cutter, hates items like this because they are different etc. can’t have it both ways.
Nissan is thinking way outside the box on this. I like it. As a Nissan owner I’m behind Nissan on this. Good Luck!
I’ve watched them test several times at NCM Motorsports park. The first time, they ran me off, the last time, I had full access to the track and pits, go figure.
I even talked to the engineers, at first, they weren’t happy with braking or cornering.
It looked fast to me.
Rich
The were filming the last time I sent to watch practice.
The video ended up here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq8I0_wygpI