Nissan’s Le Mans Contender

Images of Nissan’s front wheel drive Le Mans prototype have been bouncing round the web since it aired at the Superbowl commercial break.

And everyone knows how expensive that piece of advertising real estate is.

Testament, that, to the importance Nissan is putting on its great-looking front wheel drive Le Mans prototype for 2015. It comes with a 550 BHP V6 (a bit like the one in the GTR road car, aka Godzilla).

Apparently the emphasis of the design is on extremely low drag coefficients, which, in a high speed endurance race like the 24 Heures, is essential.

But while the car’s internal combustion engine does indeed put all of its power through the front wheels, the hybrid drive
is a KERS system that collects kinetic energy from the front wheels under braking and pushes it out to the rear wheels under acceleration.

Nissan reckon that way an additional 700 BHP can be deployed out of a corner – meaning that comes to a whopping 1250 odd horsepower at full power.

Mental.

The prototype shatters another motorsport orthodoxy too, in that the front wheels are wider than the rear, which lay a meagre 9 inches of rubber onto the tarmac in comparison to the 14 laid down at the front. This is again, apparently, in aid of the all-important drag coefficient.

We can’t help but think that will look, let alone drive, a little strange.

We’ll have to wait and see.