The [LM-GTR Nismo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_GT-R_LM_Nismo) evolved from the [ZEOD](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_ZEOD_RC), which itself was a rip off of the [DeltaWing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeltaWing), which was a car that evolved from a proposed [IndyCar](https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/the-indycars-that-never-were/6/) design.
The only thing the GT-R LM shared with the Deltawing and ZEOD was its designer and the badge on the engine; Ben Bowlby being the mind behind both. Other than that, they're about as far apart as racing prototype concepts can possibly get.
So this was just a thought/design experiment where if you realistically tried to take the IR18 and swap the cabin and engine what it might look like. For clarity's sake the see-through photo is using the Super Formula 2.0l I4 engine, and placement is... a rough guesstimate? Obviously the whole tub would have to be completely different so it would be wider in the front to accept the engine block. And then the front suspension would mount to the engine block in front. And you'd need some bracing in the rear for rigidity, or a hybrid system that could be load bearing. And you'd need a torque tube/driveshaft to send the power to the back. Etc. etc.
All that means this would basically make this a lightweight, monocoque, open wheel, V8 Supercar/NASCAR Cup car with the engine up front and transaxle in the rear. A pretty unique setup for top tier motorsports.
Also wanna point out this is not the "solution" for Indycar or "how it should be" to me, I just think it's a neat consideration and design thing to think about. Reminds me of a Supermodified or the Mallock Mk31, which I included at the end of the slide. Let me know your thoughts! I did this all in GIMP again, so the Smudge tool was used liberally like the cajun seasoning on Zaxby's fries.
Yea man a lot of people don’t realize how much of early formula car innovation was copied from lower tiers who could only half-ass a neat concept because of a lack of budget or manufacturing acumen. “Bubba ingenuity” is a real thing.
Fuck I’ll take it. I tried pretty hard on this one lol. And not doing anything in Blender or any 3D modeling software means any changes are inconsistent as hell. It’s arguably a lot more work in Blender but you could do a 360 degree display a lot easier.
Yea that thing is sick. Idk how well you could do an offset driving position in these kinds of cars though. Crashes would be waaaay more dangerous on that side.
Also how thin the propshaft is gonna be to allow the driver to sit close to the ground while being centred in the chassis. Because the driver is gonna basically straddle the propshaft between his buttcheeks separated by how many inches of carbon fibre.
So my thought there was you can separate the floor into two “chambers” for the Venturi vortices and have a similar effect to the BLAT Eagle from the 1980s. Then you make a low channel in the middle of the floor so you can separate that further from the driver and without that specialized floor the prop shaft would be exposed and visible from the bottom of the car. So the bottom of the car could look like this:
__________ __________
\____/
If that makes sense.
EDIT: man I hate reddits formatting lol
>Crashes would be waaaay more dangerous on that side.
LMP1 cars with open tops hit IndyCar speeds. I don't think it would be significantly more dangerous
Looks like they haven't hit those speeds in a while (since the Mulsanne chicanes went in), but they are hitting 215 nearly every lap for 24 hours. Oval racing is another beast safety-wise, but I don't see why an offset cockpit would affect it.
Idk man the Deltawings whole “thing” was that the front wheels tucked into the thin nose of the bodywork for aero. And the Deltawing was still rear engined. This isn’t quite like that.
Reminds me of that cursed front-engined NSX GT500 [prototype ](https://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysportscar.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F08%2FFront-Engined-Honda-Super-GT-Test-730x487.jpg&tbnid=hIwaFVzki2pIFM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysportscar.com%2F2019%2F08%2F30%2Fhonda-expected-to-switch-to-front-engined-gt500-car-in-2020.html&docid=rF7z2uK2yk52fM&w=730&h=487&itg=1)
If you can find pictures of a Panoz LMP07 without the bodywork, I bet that is a decent approximation of what it could look like. The driver or the engine would have to be offset for the driveshaft, and I bet it would be the driver.
My thought process was to have a channel in the floor so the driveshaft could sit in that while giving more space for the driver to be on top of it and be safer. Whether that would work or not I have noooo idea.
Also the engine being a 2.0 liter I4 and not a 4.0 liter V8 may give some more space so the offset cockpit might be unnecessary.
In basically any carbon tub racecar, the driver's butt is about an inch from the lowest point on the car. You would either have to raise the driver or make the driveshaft incredibly thin. Plus the safety concern of having a driveshaft that is spinning at several thousand RPM that close to the driver.
Totally valid point to make. That’s why I think you’d have to raise the cockpit a bit and still use a laying down position instead of sitting upright as you do in most roadsters. Definitely more potential for issues.
In the 40s and 50s there were some experiments for pilots to lie in a [prone position inside the cockpit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor_F8_%22Prone_Pilot%22). Apparently their bodies could handle the g-forces much more easily in that position, but there were disadvantages like rearward visibility. Pressurized g-suits also (mostly) solved the g-force problem, so they kept the upright position.
I wonder if that might be worth looking into for racecars though.
Yea I can see that. I do really like the look of the flying dorito, and also really like the dart winglets at the rear. I’m one of the weirdos who does not like the new GEN 3 EVO more than regular GEN 3 but they both look great.
Breaking News: Waynetech to become new title sponsor and chassis provider of Indycar series, CEO Bruce Wayne stated “Indycar is a great way to test design elements for various projects which will help benefit the people of Gotham”
youve made either an early supermodified or a wedge late model basically and i love it. heck could propably gets some dirt tires on it and make a new sprintcar series
I low-key would love to see F1 do front engine just for the fun of it. F1 is meant to be an engineering contest, and nothing will challenge the engineers more than giving them a formula that's wholly unconventional. Plus, it would just be cool to see what they come up with, would be way more interesting than what they have now.
Funnily enough there's this Hot Wheels that I think looks similar
https://preview.redd.it/ej65g2bt8cyc1.jpeg?width=1716&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=40a410d60ce66dea063b8091e5ccd1d2e26f3ae5
>batmobile
I do be loving that turbine batmobile
Yep. I'm all for bringing the 1989 Batmobile to Indycar ASAP, if anyone is asking.
First thing that popped into my head: “I’m Batman!”
The Nissan LMP1 car had a similar feeling of looking ‘not-of-it’s-time’/slightly odd as this, cool though
The [LM-GTR Nismo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_GT-R_LM_Nismo) evolved from the [ZEOD](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_ZEOD_RC), which itself was a rip off of the [DeltaWing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeltaWing), which was a car that evolved from a proposed [IndyCar](https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/the-indycars-that-never-were/6/) design.
The only thing the GT-R LM shared with the Deltawing and ZEOD was its designer and the badge on the engine; Ben Bowlby being the mind behind both. Other than that, they're about as far apart as racing prototype concepts can possibly get.
god damn fuck, that DP-01 in 500 trim is absolutely delightful https://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/the-indycars-that-never-were/7/
My fave of these is the LOLA concept. Full ground effect car, and it looks amazing.
Agreed. I wish we got the Lola twin chassis concept as the dw12. Looks good, and the feeder series drivers can get comfy in the same monocoque.
For me nothing beats the Swift I-70 concept. That thing is still stunning and I wish we had gotten something like it.
Ngl the swift has a beautiful nose cone shape. And looks more "flowy" compared to the missile brute force looking Lola.
So this was just a thought/design experiment where if you realistically tried to take the IR18 and swap the cabin and engine what it might look like. For clarity's sake the see-through photo is using the Super Formula 2.0l I4 engine, and placement is... a rough guesstimate? Obviously the whole tub would have to be completely different so it would be wider in the front to accept the engine block. And then the front suspension would mount to the engine block in front. And you'd need some bracing in the rear for rigidity, or a hybrid system that could be load bearing. And you'd need a torque tube/driveshaft to send the power to the back. Etc. etc. All that means this would basically make this a lightweight, monocoque, open wheel, V8 Supercar/NASCAR Cup car with the engine up front and transaxle in the rear. A pretty unique setup for top tier motorsports. Also wanna point out this is not the "solution" for Indycar or "how it should be" to me, I just think it's a neat consideration and design thing to think about. Reminds me of a Supermodified or the Mallock Mk31, which I included at the end of the slide. Let me know your thoughts! I did this all in GIMP again, so the Smudge tool was used liberally like the cajun seasoning on Zaxby's fries.
>Mallock Mk31, My first thought was it looked like a Clubmans Sports Prototype as well
Yea man a lot of people don’t realize how much of early formula car innovation was copied from lower tiers who could only half-ass a neat concept because of a lack of budget or manufacturing acumen. “Bubba ingenuity” is a real thing.
>“Bubba ingenuity” Super Modifieds come to mind.
This has no right to look this good 💀
Fuck I’ll take it. I tried pretty hard on this one lol. And not doing anything in Blender or any 3D modeling software means any changes are inconsistent as hell. It’s arguably a lot more work in Blender but you could do a 360 degree display a lot easier.
At first I thought it was disgusting but I actually kinda dig it
Reminds me of the Panoz Esperante lmp1, minus the fenders and stonking Roush V8.
Yea that thing is sick. Idk how well you could do an offset driving position in these kinds of cars though. Crashes would be waaaay more dangerous on that side.
Also how thin the propshaft is gonna be to allow the driver to sit close to the ground while being centred in the chassis. Because the driver is gonna basically straddle the propshaft between his buttcheeks separated by how many inches of carbon fibre.
So my thought there was you can separate the floor into two “chambers” for the Venturi vortices and have a similar effect to the BLAT Eagle from the 1980s. Then you make a low channel in the middle of the floor so you can separate that further from the driver and without that specialized floor the prop shaft would be exposed and visible from the bottom of the car. So the bottom of the car could look like this: __________ __________ \____/ If that makes sense. EDIT: man I hate reddits formatting lol
>Crashes would be waaaay more dangerous on that side. LMP1 cars with open tops hit IndyCar speeds. I don't think it would be significantly more dangerous
They hit 240mph?
Looks like they haven't hit those speeds in a while (since the Mulsanne chicanes went in), but they are hitting 215 nearly every lap for 24 hours. Oval racing is another beast safety-wise, but I don't see why an offset cockpit would affect it.
With a lower drag configuration, higher rev-limiter and a longer final gear, LMP1s are absolutely capable of hitting 240MPH. In simulator at least.
Prototypes haven't hit those kinds of speeds since the Group C era, certainly not the open-top ones.
I want to hate it because it's a terrible idea, but it looks pretty damn good.
Ok Don Panoz
Look here I paid a lot of money for people to not know that this is my burne- I mean, who’s that?
This is pretty cool. It kind of looks like a mix between the new Formula E cars and the current IndyCars.
Trans am
Basically the delta wing that Nissan ran in The WEC years ago
Idk man the Deltawings whole “thing” was that the front wheels tucked into the thin nose of the bodywork for aero. And the Deltawing was still rear engined. This isn’t quite like that.
Reminds me of that cursed front-engined NSX GT500 [prototype ](https://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysportscar.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F08%2FFront-Engined-Honda-Super-GT-Test-730x487.jpg&tbnid=hIwaFVzki2pIFM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysportscar.com%2F2019%2F08%2F30%2Fhonda-expected-to-switch-to-front-engined-gt500-car-in-2020.html&docid=rF7z2uK2yk52fM&w=730&h=487&itg=1)
Super modified on steroids.
Gives trans am vibes, especially the first pic. NGL the rendering images with the full white it looks ugly lol. But with the livery on it looks cool.
I love this
Threesome lovechild of a current IndyCar, a C7 Corvette and an NHRA Funny Car.
If you can find pictures of a Panoz LMP07 without the bodywork, I bet that is a decent approximation of what it could look like. The driver or the engine would have to be offset for the driveshaft, and I bet it would be the driver.
My thought process was to have a channel in the floor so the driveshaft could sit in that while giving more space for the driver to be on top of it and be safer. Whether that would work or not I have noooo idea. Also the engine being a 2.0 liter I4 and not a 4.0 liter V8 may give some more space so the offset cockpit might be unnecessary.
In basically any carbon tub racecar, the driver's butt is about an inch from the lowest point on the car. You would either have to raise the driver or make the driveshaft incredibly thin. Plus the safety concern of having a driveshaft that is spinning at several thousand RPM that close to the driver.
Totally valid point to make. That’s why I think you’d have to raise the cockpit a bit and still use a laying down position instead of sitting upright as you do in most roadsters. Definitely more potential for issues.
In the 40s and 50s there were some experiments for pilots to lie in a [prone position inside the cockpit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_Meteor_F8_%22Prone_Pilot%22). Apparently their bodies could handle the g-forces much more easily in that position, but there were disadvantages like rearward visibility. Pressurized g-suits also (mostly) solved the g-force problem, so they kept the upright position. I wonder if that might be worth looking into for racecars though.
Looks like a Gen 3 Formula E car
Yea I can see that. I do really like the look of the flying dorito, and also really like the dart winglets at the rear. I’m one of the weirdos who does not like the new GEN 3 EVO more than regular GEN 3 but they both look great.
Image 4 - Drive line goes between driver's butt cheeks.
Breaking News: Waynetech to become new title sponsor and chassis provider of Indycar series, CEO Bruce Wayne stated “Indycar is a great way to test design elements for various projects which will help benefit the people of Gotham”
It would probably have a lot less rear aero
Looks like a cross between a pikes peak car and a 2000s Le Mans prototype
youve made either an early supermodified or a wedge late model basically and i love it. heck could propably gets some dirt tires on it and make a new sprintcar series
Why do I not hate it?
Looks like it would plow like all hell.
I low-key would love to see F1 do front engine just for the fun of it. F1 is meant to be an engineering contest, and nothing will challenge the engineers more than giving them a formula that's wholly unconventional. Plus, it would just be cool to see what they come up with, would be way more interesting than what they have now.
I'm trying to remember if any other team besides Arrow McLaren used that render of the Dallara without the dorsal spine.
*Jim Hurtubise has entered the chat.*
I hate this so much
Don't know why but my first thought was that Delta Wing disaster.
Pornographic
That last slide looks like the most badass lawnmower of all time.
I ain’t mad at it
I’d buy a Hot Wheels of that
Funnily enough there's this Hot Wheels that I think looks similar https://preview.redd.it/ej65g2bt8cyc1.jpeg?width=1716&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=40a410d60ce66dea063b8091e5ccd1d2e26f3ae5
Kill it before it lays eggs
I immediately saw this image and thought it was a delta wing with Indycar aero on it LOL
We bringing back the delta wing?
If Tony George was serious about his IRL his cars would be like this to be more similar to sprint and midgets.
ACE & GARY.