Unbelievable car, the WM P88

[Avro707C]

http://gto-racing.nexenservices.com/Nouveau_dossier/groupeC1_wmP87peugeot_objectif400_1.jpg

http://gto-racing.nexenservices.com/Nouveau_dossier/groupeC1_wmP88peugeot.htm

Take a look at that, the WM P88, a V6 powered car, with 950hp!! The picture shows the near identical WM P87 - Peugeot 'Objectif 400'

It was designed to do 400km/hr, and it did that, in fact even better, 405km/hr! One of the fastest speeds ever recorded at Le Mans.

And it actually looks pretty good, too. Very soft, smooth, flowing lines. It did however suffer from overheating, that put it out of the 1988 24 Hueres du Mans, but, still it is a remarkable car.

[VQ]

It is an impressive car but the site is in french and I'm not in the mood to translate it and read. Ne way nice car and lots of power considering the capacity (3.0 litres right?)

[Avro707C]

Yeah, 3.0 litre Peugeot V6, with 2 garrett turbos running at 2.8 bar pressure, prepared by Dennis Mathiot Compétition.

Even in the race, it had 910hp@8200rpm. But, for qualifying, they push it up to 950hp!

I can translate a few things for you, but not everything, since my French is only mediocre. The Chevaux means like horsepower, and kgm is the measure of torque, used in some countries.

Amazing is the weight, only 850kg, giving one hell of a crazy power to weight ratio.

[Radical-Al]

Thats nothing compared to the 2.3 liter Oldsmobile Aerotech of 1987... had a "quad" 4 (I think it was twin turbo or a single big turbo, forgot at the presetn moment) that had over 800 horsepower and got a closed speed record at Talladega of 267 mph! It hit 278 mph on the straight!! (with a 4 cyinder!) I have a book about it... unbelievable car.

http://www.fast-autos.net/oldsmobile/aerotech.jpg Its the long tail version... the short tail hit 254 mph.

[Avro707C]

But, will it catch a WM P88 around a lap of Le Mans.. A super slippery car is fine, but, you need downforce in order to corner properly.

What I'm talking about is something of an entirely different nature. The WM car achieved 405km/hr with extra downforce, and it could corner quickly, too.

[Radical-Al]

maybe not, but I did see this 1994 Toyota Celica that had 900 or so horsepower off its 2.0 liter 4 cylinder engine... it cornered real good since it was a Pikes Peak hill climber... ;)

[Avro707C]

I remember that one.. A guy from New Zealand entered it.. If I remember right, it was extremely a raw car, with nearly nothing in it..

It even made the Peugeot 405 T16's look refined by comparison. The 405 T16 was made famous in the award winning short film "Climb Dance".

If you haven't got it, or, haven't seen it, then, I strongly recommend you download it somewhere, or, order it. It's compelling viewing, to see Ari Vatenen throwing that car along the Pikes Peak course.

Now, back to the topic at hand, what happens with sports cars with little downforce is they can tend to slither and squirm about a lot, and, can very easily get airborne going over crests and so on (something that Le Mans had plenty of, in the old days of the long Mulsanne straight), or, very easily get unstable under braking.

I would imagine that long tailed Oldsmobile thing would have very scary handling characteristics when cornerning. I don't think it'd have too much downforce at all, from the look of it. When you look at it, you can see definate similarities between it's shape and the original Porsche 917 Langheck, of 1969.

The 69 917LH had amazingly good aerodynamics, and very low drag co-efficient, but, it also had very little downforce, and disastrously bad handling characteristics. It was so bad that many teams refused to use it, and stayed with the older but much less powerful flat-8 908LH (the 908 had just 400hp, where the new 4.5 litre flat-12 917 had 520hp in 1969). But, the teams that did try it, noted that it had straightline performance in a region that had never before been imagined on a normal circuit race car of its type. It was hitting more than 340km/hr, in long-tailed form.

Ferdinand Piech's aerodynamic doctrine of lowest aerodynamic drag for highest top speed was fine in theory, and it meant minimising the use of add-on shapes and air-intakes, but, it didn't properly take into account the need for adequate downforce.

I believe it was John Wyer Automotive Consulting that cured the problems, by designing a high tail, for the 917. It created downforce. Their high tail was crude, since it was cut and bent into shape, and then taped on to the car. But, it had an immediate positive effect. Piech then, after hearing of it, adopted the design, and, refined it in the wind tunnel, and it later was seen on the short-tailed 917 Kurzheck of 1970, which was very very successful.

The Langheck model was not abandoned, though. It was kept as a Le Mans special, but, had further work and refinement, and, as a result, Louisa Piech's Porsche Salzburg team arrived at Le Mans in 1970 with a radical white 917LH, number 25, featuring a brand new 5.0 litre flat-12, with in excess of 600hp. This car was the first car ever to do a lap of Le Mans with more than 150mph average speed. And on the Mulsanne straight, it was achieving consistent speeds of 390km/hr. And it's handling, although still not to the liking of many drivers back then, who prefered to throw their cars about, and, throttle steer them, was greatly improved. It required finesse, and a smooth touch to drive it, but, it was very fast, and did much faster lap times than the short-tailed 917 Kurzhecks, and the many Ferrari 512S' (I think their was about 6 or 7 of them)

It only went out of the race due to it's driver missing a gear, which resulted in the engine over-revving, and bending an inlet valve (it was a common mistake among 917 drivers). Even before that happened, the Salzburg 917 Langheck (they'd also entered a red and white Kurzheck too, just to be certain) had amassed a huge lead on the rest of the field.

The other LH in the race, that did finish 2nd, piloted by Gerard Larrousse and Willy Kausen (the famous "hippy" colour schemed car), was powered by a 4.5 litre engine like the short-tailed 917's had, but, with the additional problem of the engine being water-logged, and misfiring.

So, from an ominous start, something that wasn't particularly well refined, ended up becoming very successful, and well loved. Driver Vic Elford commented about the 1970 #25 917 Langheck that he drove at Le Mans with Kurt Ahrens:

"an awesome car."

Ferdinand Piech has never been one to conform to the design principles of the day.. He's always been designing stuff that broke all the rules, and did things differently to standard conventions.