Prototype car design for a series of livery studies. The work appeared in #NEWGROUPCBLAST, an Instagram thread spun up by Oct8n in October 2018 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Group C/GTP sports-prototype era and in anticipation of the the new 2020 prototype regulations.
The concepts were created to build out a reimagined "alt-history" from the time period where prototype racing began its decline.
Early 1993. The FIA and IMSA work out a revised rule-set to stop the rapid meltdown and exodus that Max Mosley's F1-based concept was causing. To ensure relevance for manufacturers and encourage technical development, regulations once again favored production-based engines of varied sizes and configurations. Aerodynamic regulations were loosened, encouraging further exploration and advances. Older cars were grandfathered in, and in a twist intended to help balance the field, the rules granted a weight advantage to new chassis made available to privateer customer teams.
MOMO's Gianpiero Moretti saw an opportunity to help a resurgence of endurance-racing world-wide and brokered a chassis-development partnership between his friends at Ferrari and at Nissan's NPTI (formerly Electromotive) in California. The car would be a technical, aerodynamic, and engineering collaboration between Ferrari and NPTI, with Dallara on board for construction capabilities.
The chassis was designed to accommodate small-displacement twin-turbo V6 & V8 engines. Ferrari intended to use a development of the F40's 2.9 liter v8 engine (itself tracing a lineage to the Group B 288 GTO and Lancia LC2 Group C cars), NPTI would continue with the proven multiple-championship-winning Nissan VG30 3.0 liter V6 engine from the GTP ZXT and NPT-90.