11:32am
A Loophole Cleverly Exploited for Toyota’s GT-One to Exist.
You may have driven the insanely fast Toyota GT-One in Gran Turismo, but did you ever know how it came to be or the loophole it exploited in order to race during the 1998 and 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans?
Toyota Team Europe (TTE) and Italian chassis manufacturer, Dallara were charged with the development of the Toyota GT-One, and in order to do so as effectively as possible, they studied the Porsche 911 GT1 and Mercedes CLK GTR during the 1997 season to understand the loopholes they had seemingly avoided.
At that time, FIA and ACO regulations mandated that for any Le Mans Prototype developed, a minimum of 25 homologated road-going counterparts were to be built. But they couldn’t simply be a race car with some leather and fancy stitching, they also needed enough functional space to hold a single suitcase—presumably for very short weekend getaways with very little clothing required. Regardless of the rule’s silliness, Mercedes was able to exploit it by placing a small cubby hole into an unused area underneath the rear bodywork, inches from the race-bred 6.0-liter V12. Within that proximity, you could expect your deodorant and your accompanying lady’s lipstick to be a gooey mess.
With a firm grasp on how to circumvent the FIA and ACO’s regulations, TTE began engineering and designing the GT-One in order race during the 1998 season. They were well underway when the governing bodies announced the upcoming year’s homologation regulations: there were none, but in order to become certified, TTE needed to prove intent for the 1997 season, meaning at least one road-going car needed to be produced.
Because this car would never truly be sold to a customer, they left out any driver luxuries one might expect from what was a supposed $1.5 million supercar—except for that regulated storage space. TTE was able to convince FIA and ACO officials that the car’s fuel tank (normally empty during pre-race scrutineering) was allowable as a trunk space since it could, theoretically, hold a suitcase. Clever son’s of bitches.
TTE would eventually build seven examples of the GT-One:
LM801 - Developmental prototype, never raced.
LM802 - 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans #29, later a test car.
LM803 - Road legal version of the GT-One, on display in Europe.
LM804 - 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans #28, 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans #3, later on display in Japan.
LM805 - 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans #27, later a test car.
LM806 - 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans #2. (Destroyed)
LM907 - 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans #1.
Watch: On board with Ukyo Katayama during the 1999 Le Mans race:
Technical data:
Engine – Toyota R36V, 3.6 litre Twin-Turbo V8 (600 bhp @ 6000 rpm, 479 lb·ft @ 6000 RPM)
Gearbox – TTE six-speed unsynchronized sequential manual transmission
Suspension – Four-wheel independent, double wishbones front and rear
Dimensions – 484 cm overall length, 200 cm overall width, 1,984 lb weight
0-60 mph – 3.6 Seconds
0-100 mph – 5.9 Seconds
1/4 Mile Elapsed Time – 10.7 At 142 mph
Top Speed – 236 mph
