We always talk about the most famous cars, the fastest, the prettiest or the laudest, but did you ever ask yourself about a racing car to drive on the werdiest way possible, on the engine, on the look, and yeah, today on EnduVision, we are going to show you about the strangest one to ever race, and yes even some of them actually went well.
Lola B2K/10
Probably this will be the most normal car, that we are going to post here today.
Lola B2K/10, was a prototype desinged by Lola on the 2000. This car was actually desgined to wear a fabolous Roush-Ford V8 OHV (6.0 L), still the greatest engine and the one with more wins was an Judd GV4 V10 72º (4.0 L).
But this isn’t sound as strange engine/car, and you’re right, but for the 2004 season, the Taurus team, decided it was optimal to put him a beautiful, Caterpillar / VW TDI V10 (5.0 L), the same engine of a Tuareq from Volskwagen, and yes a diesel engine.
This car was launch on the opening season of the European Le Mans Series, the 1000km of Monza.
But after doing a few laps on the Free Practice they already know the car wasn’t ready to take part on the race. That’s why thy did not start their engines on Sunday. They went direct into the 24H of Le mans on this same year 2004.
All the expectation of the race was on that car, with 530CV and more than 1000nm everything was possible that weekend.
But the sequential shift could no longer lenght more than 2H of race, ending on a DNF.
I’d like to say that, the Lola B2K/10 with an V10 5L TDI could have potential, but that car wasn’t.
The V10 of alluminium, with steel reforced, was so heavy to manage, all the vibration typical from a diesel, wasn’t controlable on that LMP1. That made that in the qualy was already more than 43 seconds slower than P1. In fact, it was even slower than the GTs.
Nissan DeltaWing
We can absoluetly argee this car was the most strange as a design we can both see on our lives.
Le mans race car, with a peculiar form on his body, as it’s name indicates the Nissan Deltawing, has a shape of a delta. The main objective was, trying to reduce the air resistance into the half, and the fuel consumption into the half too.
In fact the car, was so aerodinamycal, without front or rear wing, there wasn’t drag, and for generate all the aerdynamic to take the corners they made it thanks to the ground effect.
In the meanwhile they also, put the front tyres really close, making the front of the body of this Nissan DeltaWing really aerodynamic too.
Also, thanks to their weight, just 475kg!
All this aerodynamic, was incredible, in terms of high speed, with his 1.6L turbo engine, making 300hp, could made the same high speed as teams with more than 600hp.
And, what happen in Le Mans?
Well for the 2012 24H Le Mans edition, this DeltaWing entered as a Garage 56, The cateogry exclusive for prototypes for experimental vehicles.
For Qualy, they qualified as P29 out of 56 cars, just in the middle of all LMP2, remember, LMP2, with more than 460hp. 160hp more than our Nissan DeltaWing.
But for the race they didn’t had many luck, after 6h of racing, the Nissan was heavily hit by the LMP1 Toyota, making our Garage 56 DNF.
But, unlike, the Lola B2K/10, our DeltaWing, did not finish his hisotry here.
Nissna knew that car has potential and all the fans, wanted to see more about this car, that’s why they went to Petit Le Mans.
On the Octuber of 2012, the were gonna make the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
For this ocasion the would finish P5, just behind 6 laps of the winner, an LMP1, and only 3 laps behind of the LMP2 winner.
Panoz Q9 “Sparky”
The Panoz Q9 “Sparky”, was the first ever race car with an hybrid system on it.
That was back in 1998, the first production cars where arriving on the streets, as Toyota Prius on main example, but hybrid system wasn’t on motorsport till this Panoz Esperante GTR-1 Q9 hybrid arrived.
While other manufactures were building mid-engine supercars, for the fastest time around ht ecircuit, Panoz, had another idea for GT1.
While the car featured a massive 6.0L V8 with 500hp in the front, and all the battery module was placed right in the passanger side.
His major Enemy: Weight
Having a huge engine, and battery that roughly was 300kg extra. All this extra weight mean into a heavy and difficult to handle through the tight corners.
Le mans 1998
His main objective was participating on this race, the 24H of Le Mans.
However it didn’t go as planned. During the pre-quilfying sesion, his excessive weight took a severe toll.
The Q9 “Sparky” failed to qualyfy for the big event, his borhter the internal combustion system, did to qualify, and finishing the race in 5th position.
As the same story of Nissan DeltaWing the story didn’t end here, few motnhs later they entered into Petit Le Mans event from the same year.
For this occasion, this Q9 Sparky went highly better, on his LMGT1, they win, except there were only 2 cars and the other LMGT1 DNF. Comparing into his brother the internal combustion, without any hybrid system, they win on GT1 category, and finishing 18 laps behind.
Except the results weren’t the best, they still make a huge advance on motorsport history, the next car with any hybrid system will come on 2009 by the hand of the KERS on F1.
Thank you very much for your time to read;
Here we let, the videos on 1 lap in the Autodoromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari – Imola
With
Nissan DeltaWing;
About Lola and Panoz, there isn’t or working mods for them sadly.
Still, have a seat and read more of our articles!
https://enduvision.com/up2race-conquers-the-2026-24h-barcelona-after-24-hours-of-racing/
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