NISSAN deserves a huge amount of credit for getting involved with the radical motorport project DeltaWing.
And that’s not just us saying that. The words come straight from Ben Bowlby, pictured, the originator and designer of the ground-breaking concept, a car that has been grabbing headlines around the world in recent weeks.
Speaking during the first phase of European testing as the vehicle is prepared for the Le Mans 24 Hours, Bowlby said: ‘Nissan were almost the only company who had the courage and who were excited by taking a risk.
‘They saw that it was making a challenge to everybody else. It has been said that innovation hurts sometimes. When you are pushing the boundaries you don’t know that it’s going to work.’
With just over a month to go to Le Mans, Nissan Insider travelled to Snetterton Racetrack, Norfolk to check on DeltaWing’s progress as testing continued in East Anglia before the team headed to France and then Spain.
The place was buzzing. Darren Cox, General Manager for Nissan in Europe, told us: ‘There are just 101 days between the car hitting the track and taking part in Le Mans. It’s insane.
‘If we finish, there won’t be a dry eye in the garage. What we are doing is turning a fantastic concept into a 24-hour car. To get to Le Mans in itself is a Herculean effort and if we finish, it will be an achievement that will go down in the history books.’
Hugely innovative
Bowlby, who has been working on the project for three years now, shared his thoughts with us on various aspects of the vehicle, which is powered by a hugely innovative 1.6-litre turbo-powered engine designed in line with Nissan’s pure-driving principles.
It features half the weight, half the horsepower and half the aerodynamic drag of a traditional Le Mans sports car.
Read more of what Ben Bowlby has to say about the DeltaWing project on our sister website pure-driving.co.uk.