Tag Archives: Le Mans

Peugeot to mark a return to the World Endurance Championship with their Le Mans hypercar

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The motorsports community is eagerly awaiting the World Endurance Championship to be held in 2022 with the 24 Hours of Le Mans being the season finale. Reason enough for Peugeot to mark a return to the racing fraternity of one of the toughest test of man and machine, after almost a decade. The French automotive manufacturer has revealed the details of the hybrid powertrain that’ll power the Hypercar for the endurance races – sharing the playing field with the likes of Toyota and Glickenhaus.

The powertrain called the HYBRID4 500KW of the Le Mans Hypercar will get the mid-mounted V6 petrol engine weighing 165 kg, that’ll drive the rear wheels via the seven-speed sequential gearbox – churning out 500 kW (670 hp) output. More assistance will come from the 200 kW electric motor mounted on the front axles. This hybrid system is the work of Peugeot Sport and technical partner TOTAL, while the 900-volt battery is developed by TOTAL subsidiary Saft Groupe S.A. According to Peugeot Sport’s WEC program powertrain director Francois Coudrain, “The architecture of the Peugeot HYBRID4 500 kW powertrain is the result of a highly detailed brief shaped by the new WEC regulations.”

Going in line with the regulations for engine development and body dimensions, Peugeot’s battery will be charged before the race to the brim, and then in the race, it will be juiced up via the regenerative braking. To stay within regulations, the V6 engine will control the amount of output to the drivetrain from the motor-generator unit (MGU). So, the car will be a four-wheel-drive when the electric motor is in use and switch back to the rear-wheel-drive when it is deactivated. The powertrain system will undergo testing in early 2021 and finally, the car will debut by the end of next year before joining the championship in 2022.

Designer: Peugeot

Built for Formula1 as well as Le Mans circuits, the LMF1 concept is all about speed and endurance

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What would it take to build the ultimate racecar? A racecar that can handle the breakneck speeds of an F1 race, but also withstand the grueling demands of the 24-hour Le Mans circuit? I don’t imagine there’s a single car that has fared well on both an F1 track as well as a Le Mans (hit me up if there is one), but that didn’t stop designer Robin Mazánek from creating the LMF1, a conceptual beauty made to dominate any sort of racetrack.

The LMF1 (a portmanteau of LM and F1) just like its name, is a fusion of styles and technology. Inspired by Formula 1 and endurance prototypes, the LMF1 sports a lightweight, aerodynamic, low-hung design with a closed-cockpit. Modeled after most Le Mans prototypes, the car measures at nearly 433 centimeters long, making it shorter than the conventional F1 car, but just as capable. Carbon-fiber paneling makes the car lightweight and sturdy, and helps use air to its advantage, creating just the right amount of downforce needed to give the car speed and control on the track. The air even helps cool the car’s insides, which features a hybrid turbo-engine for maximized range. A 1.6L turbo-engine helps generate electricity, which gets stored in the car’s batteries, supplying the electromotor with an extra surge of power. The car comes with a rear-wheel drive, and according to Mazánek’s calculations, tops off at 1000hp.

The LMF1 currently exists just as a fan-made concept that fulfills the childhood fantasy of many a gearhead. I don’t imagine any company’s ever taken up the challenge to build the ultimate undisputed race-demon that can stand up to F1 and Le Mans racers, but let’s hope someone eventually does!

Designer: Robin Mazánek

This Porsche 911 concept uses nature-inspired design to look menacing

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Nature is filled with billions of inspiration sources, from form design to CMF, from natural characteristics to animal behavior. Pick up the right source of inspiration and you can piggy-back on millennia of evolution that has given a particular animal a trait of dominance. In fact, there’s a beautiful video from VOX that explains how nature acts as a designer’s biggest and most valuable encyclopedia.

Companies like Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mustang, and Porsche make the famous use of dominating animals in their logos, but this Porsche 911 concept’s design takes things a bit further by being directly inspired by an animal. The Porsche 911 Bullfrog by Alexander Prime borrows from one of the largest, most dominating animals in the frog family. In fact, look carefully and its black front literally looks like a frog’s face.

Designed as a prototype for the Le Mans 24 hour race, and to celebrate Porsche’s stunning record of being present at every Le Mans race ever held and dominating most of them, the 911 Bullfrog captures the essence of the brand while still retaining the ability to look muscular and menacing. “With its oval headlights, the new generation continued to reflect the traditional 911 design. The new 911 is the sum of its predecessors: The silhouette: iconic. The design: timeless. The technology: inspired by great racing victories”, says Alexander, the designer behind the 911 Bullfrog concept.

Designer: Alexander Prime

What would a Tesla-made Le Mans racecar look like?

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I’ll tell you what it would look like. Short of having Elon Musk’s flamethrower as an afterburner, a Tesla racecar would be all kinds of awesome. Even Miguel Angel Bahri feels so, as is captured in his conceptual Tesla T1 racer. Originally designed for the Michelin Design Challenge, the Tesla T1 is a conceptual Le Mans racecar with an electric drivetrain powered – in part – by the wind hitting against your vehicle when you drive at high speeds. The car comes with specially designed wheels that have independently rotating turbines in them that begin to generate power to the four individual drivetrains, along with a massive turbine right behind the driver that rotates more the faster you drive, generating power for the car. It’s an incredibly ambitious concept, but so was landing all three boosters of the Falcon 9, digging a tunnel under the ground to circumvent traffic, and creating a brain-to-machine interface… in short, nothing’s quite impossible for Mr. Musk. You’d probably wonder that those turbines would need to create sufficient drag to rotate fast, and you’d be right, but the car would probably more than make up for that by giving it the range it needs to complete the 24 hour Le Mans race.

Designer: Miguel Angel Bahri

Two for the price of one!

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Most of our articles are pretty straightforward in the sense that one article usually caters to one design. However, since I’m feeling a little festive already, and so is designer Daniel Platek, this post is going to have two designs in it! The Audi Future Le Mans Vision didn’t stop at being a conceptual car, it also spilled over into shoe design. The designer carried the car’s form language into the shoes to make something that looks like it came out of Tony Stark’s wardrobe! The car design’s incredibly edgy too, with planar surface treatment galore. It doesn’t particularly follow Audi’s organic, aerodynamic surface treatment, but with something that looks this good (and comes with even better looking shoes!), who can complain??

Designer: Daniel Platek

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My Futuristic 6-wheel Drive!

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The Tesla LMP1 looks like Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, and the Speed Racer co-created a vehicle. The LMP1 belongs to the era where the internal combustion engine’s rendered obsolete, and everything has shifted to electric and electromagnetic energy. The LMP1 is Tesla’s hero for the Le Mans in 2030. I don’t use the term ‘hero’ lightly here, because the LMP1 looks like an absolute bad-ass! For one, it has 6 wheels, independently powered by 6 motors… and get this, notice how the wheels are in no way connected to the chassis of the car!! It’s 2030, enter Electromagnetic Suspension, or those cool blue lightning bolts you see connecting the wheels to the car. They ensure that no matter the terrain, the cockpit always glides through without bumping around even a bit. Not to mention, they also look unbelievable! Has your jaw dropped yet??

Designer: Minjea Seo

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For when your Tires are Tired

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The Le Mans 2030 concept for the Michelin Design challenge brings focus to something most transportation designers take for granted. The wheel. David Voltner re-imagines the design and construction of the wheel for racing applications. Its layered approach allows you to physically see and gauge damage done to a wheel during racing. The four colored layers showcase the four different stages of wear and tear. The pit-crew can then immediately tell if a wheel needs replacing by just looking out for color cues on the wheel’s surface.

Admitted that with time, dirt and grease will make all the colors look nearly similar, but imagine the applications of this sort of technology! With some wondrous material engineering, we can actually have tire designs that allow us to get a visually accurate representation of wear and tear! And here I wonder why no one’s ever developed something like on a large scale this before!

Designer: David Voltner

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