Ginetta Akula
- Thread starter RocZX
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- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
That's rather up to the manufacturer. One of points of the category is to have race cars more closely resembling road cars. The FIA/ACO will regulate the power units and aerodynamic performance, but not the chassis and broader body shape - so that the cars can look like a manufacturer's road cars. In any case, the carbon-fibre tub the new Ginetta will use isn't exactly that far removed from the one the Ginetta LMP1 car uses (among other LMP1 and LMP2 cars, and a lot of GTE cars too), and it doesn't seem unreasonable to speculate that the hypercars will also use.
There's no particular reason to directly derive the car from a road car (or build a road car version of the race car), but there's also no particular reason why someone can't.
- 285
- Barcelona
- topu999
Eh, I sincerely doubt we'll see road legal versions of these cars. There is a reason why they wouldn't, and history shows it with the apparently fully road legal Toyota GT-One. Granted, its badge would hold it back but its extreme performance and looks should make it sell, right? But they only made one. They didn't even make it available as a one (just-a-few) off, selling it to those willing to fork out the money.
I don't think now it'll be different. Specially as, like you said, there's no need to do it.
- 385
- England
But that's kind of like now, you could make a road car out of a current LMP tub, I'm sure they said on Midweek Motorsport in an interview with some one from the ACO that you couldn't turn say a Senna or a AMG Project one into one of the new hypercar class. Essentially the chassis rules will be similar to what they are now but with a better (for the drivers back) driving position and a larger greenhouse. I think a lot of the website have gotten it wrong as they all think we will see modified Sennas and Valkyries racing and that's not what the rules are.
- 86,798
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Ultimately there's no real reason why you can't see a Senna, or a ONE (I really hope Mercedes does something about that name), or a Valkyrie in the hypercar class, it's just a case of how reasonable a prospect it is.
Engine configuration and capacity is free, but maxed out at 697hp and with a 400lb minimum weight. You've got to go as far as you can in 24 hours and actually make it there, so would you want a detuned naturally aspirated 6-litre V12 that's going to swallow fuel like a [insert sexually explicit metaphor here] or a 1.6-litre turbo almost up at the top of its power output but which is so fragile that only gets a half the race distance in its original design (the ONE's isn't quite the same as the W09's but let's fudge that for now)? Probably you'll want neither, but the Senna's 4-litre turbo V8 might be near an ideal configuration for fuel use and reliability (and it's a Nissan V8 endurance engine at its heart anyway - developed from the R390's VRH35L)...
... only you need to have a 268hp electric motor driving the front wheels too. That's sort-of-fine for the Mercedes and the Aston, but there's no way to package that in a Senna, much less the (minimum) 154lb battery pack it needs.
That Toyota thing we wrote about a while back might be pretty close to the formula, and it's not terribly unfeasible as a road car - as noted earlier with the TS020. Yes, Toyota only made one back then, but that was the rule at the time.
One other consideration is the expense of it. The cars are capped at €20m for a two-car team - soup to nuts, development, personnel, entry fees, actual racing - and that's pretty easy for Toyota, or Nissan, or Audi to swallow. For Ginetta I'd say less so; Ginetta had issues selling its G60-LT-P1, to the point where only one actually ran at Le Mans (the team that bought the others, Manor, fell over), and that was a tenth of that. It's going to have to make money on the project to fund it, and that screams "road cars". After all, it's what Ferrari does - it's a race team funded by road cars
GTPNewsWire
Contributing Writer
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- GTPHQ
This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on February 27th, 2019 in the Automotive News category.
- 875
- Australia
- AS1020
Ooh, very cool Ginetta!
- 66
- Memphis 10
- BeetDemHoseDown
Looks like a Corvette thats hooked on cocaine....
- 13,267
- GTPlanet
- Street-King-07
- Quattro Saltire
What is it even trying to look like? Its as if its trying to look like many different cars at once.
- 230
- United Kingdom
Looks like something out of the old Burnout games.
- 5,845
- Dublin
- Paul2007
It is great to see a company like Ginetta making cars at this level. I was fairly hyped to see this car but, having seen the styling, I am hugely disappointed. This is a seriously ugly thing. It will no doubt be a fine performer but it ain't a looker.
$525,000 is an asking price which puts you in with some serious competition so I hope it is a success for Ginetta.
$525,000 is an asking price which puts you in with some serious competition so I hope it is a success for Ginetta.
- 1,029
- Uruguay
Wow, that's more than just a little bit ugly.
- 15,381
- TRAPPIST-1g
- ProjectWHaT
Have you guys seen the location of the engine?
It's basically in the cockpit
It's basically in the cockpit
Robin
Premium
- 16,799
- United Kingdom
Have you guys seen the location of the engine?
It's basically in the cockpit
Going to be a nice cabin heater!
- 29,716
- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
