Board logo

Are Le Mans Prototypes road legal?
morcus - 3/3/12 at 10:43 PM

Obviously it's not actually important but I'm curious about it as they look to me like they should be road legal, I can't see anything major you'd have to do to put one through an IVA and I couldn't find a straight answer anywhere else so I put it to the board here.

daniel mason - 3/3/12 at 10:47 PM

depends what you class as lmp? radical? is road legal. AB sabre,race/track only

[Edited on 3/3/12 by daniel mason]

PSpirine - 3/3/12 at 10:47 PM

Are they road legal and "Can they be made road legal" are different things.

You may well be able to IVA one with minor mods (don't know about things like light heights etc.) but none of the manufacturers can do this easily as they have to get type approvals etc. which are a nightmare as there won't have been any validation done. Hence why pre-production prototypes are never sold out into the world (i.e. the pilot hand built ones) as road legal cars, even though there are hundreds of them every time an OEM releases a new model. They just get scrapped or used internally.

adithorp - 3/3/12 at 11:44 PM

I used to regularly see an early eighties GroupC car on the road. Joest Porche (936 with a roof) from memory in full race livery. Guy used to pick up his Sunday paper in it! Sounded and looked awesome.

Wasn't there a road registered 962 advertised somewhere recently?

maccmike - 4/3/12 at 12:10 AM

I think if its registered pre 96 you can have pretty much anything on the road.

Andy B - 4/3/12 at 01:27 AM

We deliberately set all of the light positions on Sabre at IVA required positions, to date we haven't put one through as all of them have gone straight to the track but I don't doubt we will IVA one this year
Regards
Andy

BobM - 4/3/12 at 06:38 AM

As has already been suggested it depends on the specific car. Tricky issues for getting race cars through IVA are headlamp height, emissions, noise, steering self-centring etc. I just got my RGB car through IVA on Friday


jeffw - 4/3/12 at 07:39 AM

Do you actually mean Le Mans cars? With the greatest respect to Andy and BDN I don't think either have competed at the 24 hrs.

There where a number of Porsche 962 chassis converted to road work, Dauer did some and this http://www.specialistcarsltd.co.uk/item/705/catid/39 is UK registered. Most of the 1960s cars where road-registered for Le Mans as well and then you have the McLaren F1, XJ220, Porsche GT1, Mercedes CLK etc all of which competed. In fact several of the McLaren F1s where converted to race cars and then converted back so there are several cars that competed at Le Mans on the roads.

morcus - 4/3/12 at 09:37 PM

I did really mean actual Le Mans cars but all the info here has been intresting. The answer seems to be 'sort of'.

BobM - 5/3/12 at 07:04 AM

quote:
Originally posted by jeffw
Do you actually mean Le Mans cars? With the greatest respect to Andy and BDN I don't think either have competed at the 24 hrs.
No, indeed, neither are Le Mans cars but they're both sports prototypes designed primarily as race cars and there are similarities - mid-engined, aerodynamic bodywork. The same issues would apply if you wanted to IVA an LMP1 or LMP2 car. Might cost you a bit more to get the car in the first place though

jeffw - 5/3/12 at 08:45 AM

Bob

Not sure a BDN and a 962 are directly comparable but I take your point. There is, of course, road-going Radicals and this beast...



Which is a Porsche 962 chassis but doesn't have a 962 engine....

[Edited on 5/3/12 by jeffw]

loggyboy - 5/3/12 at 10:36 AM

I assume you mean are they type approved - in which case no, they are not. They dont need to be road legal to race, they dont need to be based on road cars (like homologation specials) to enter the series and the only reason why they 'look' road legal is because of the nature of their 'endurance' spec - ie they have lights etc. - And the rules state enclosed wheels and alike.