Quote:
Originally Poster by Maelochs
^This. The whole idea of the endurance racing prototype class is a class of cars designed and built exclusively and entirely to compete in endurance races---not to help market road cars (the GT class does that) and not to try to look "good" to some small subset of fans. The cars are supposed to be designed and built to be moving so fast it doesn't matter what they look like.
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Do you know why they're called "prototypes", and how they first came about at Le Mans?
Before the war, Le Mans was a race for Grand Tourers, but after the war, manufacturers weren't putting enough cars into production to race them. Instead, they had cars in early stages of development which they insisted to the ACO (and probably truthfully intended) would one day go on sale, but they wanted to test them over 24 hours.
Prototypes have never been just about moving fast. Why do they have covered wheels? Why are they referred to as sportscars? And why does the ACO insist on the cars looking to look as if they could carry a passenger?
Le Mans is, fundamentally, about road relevance. It's its history, it's justification, its soul.
Whether that means they have to look like road cars, is up for debate - but prototypes are not just about going fast.
For me, personally, the cars have moved too far away from road cars. I thought the late 90s GT1/GTP cars struck a nice balance.