Here’s How It Might Look If GT1-Style Cars Came Back To Le Mans

Livery designer Sean Bull has imagined what it might look like if Le Mans Prototypes had to feature styling cues from road cars

Dan Thorn

08 Feb 2018

Here’s How It Might Look If GT1-Style Cars Came Back To Le Mans

The top class of endurance racing has undergone a bit of a wobble in recent years, with first Audi and then Porsche ending their LMP1 programmes. That’s left Toyota as the only manufacturer in the class, and although there’s a sea of new privateer squads, the pinnacle of the World Endurance Championship and Le Mans could probably do with a few more manufacturers at the top end.

Toyota's current LMP1 car looks like a spaceship, not a Toyota

To attract them, the FIA has floated the idea of changing the rules to force the cars to look vaguely like road cars, harking back to the legendary GT1-era of the 1990s which gave us fantastically extreme creations such as the Porsche 911 GT1 and Mercedes CLK-GTR. It could come into effect in the next few years, but what might modern versions of these cars look like?

Livery designer Sean Bull has imagined what manufacturers may be enticed by such rules and created some fantasy designs for a potential future ‘LMGT1’ class.

Pretty great, right? For instance, there’d be no mistaking the McLaren for anything other than a McLaren given that front of the car looks… well, like a McLaren.

Not interested in waiting a few years for the possibility of seeing cars like this? Then don’t worry, because over in the American WeatherTech SportsCar Championship similar rules already exist, giving us stuff like this gorgeous Mazda prototype.