Craig in Texas

Autoweek broke the story in today's issue complete with drawings of the car supposedly leaked direct from Porsche itself. See the story at http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl...THISWEEKSISSUE

aam993

WOOHOO!!! OMG INDEED!

bgiere

Thank You Porsche!! Soon theCorvettes to fade away into the distance....it has been tooo long since we had a GT1 car to root for.

jnnking

It's so good to see Porsche getting involved in so many different levels of racing again. Rock on!!

Greg Fishman

I thought the ALMS outlawed carbon fiber chassis in Production cars?
This would be great but Autoweek has gotten in wrong before.

Bull

Yes, saw it in my Autoweek and filed it under "Interesting if true".

Further research shows that this all appears to have started when Porsche applied for a Patent to protect the design of a mid-engined sports car. It is accompanied by a sketch of a racer with a high wing and powered by a FLAT-EIGHT cylinder engine. In his report on this, Michael Cotton (Panorama) reports that the drawing resembles the Caymen with a roof mounted air intake. He speculates that Porsche is protecting this design because it MAY indicate that Porsche's reliance on the 911 model at its basis for GT racing is coming to an end and that some sort of Cayman RS might be the basis for future GT racing...with a flat 8 engine.

It appears that Autoweek, and others, have taken the patent app drawing and had their art staff "create" an LMP1 car of it.

Ritter v4.0

Ba bye Corvette (and <<sniff>> 911)

TheOtherEric

Do you know any more about this? It must be a european patent application, because U.S. patent apps aren't public. I can confirm they DON'T have a U.S. patent regarding this.

Am I the only one who finds it kinda pathetic that it takes a $500,000 Porsche to compete with a $60,000 Corvette? That's just a shame.

Greg Fishman

What??? The ALMS C6R Corvette is not a $60k car, it is a custom made car that shares nothing with its street going counterpart except the name. The C6R is easily a $1million dollar car.

hawk993

$60,000 corvette??????...What are you smoking...those cars are not the production cars and you couldnt even by a production Z06 for $60,000...so you are comparing apples and oranges, race cars are not production cars with stickers on them, they are custom made/factory made/customized...etc...etc....do some research, watch some racing...sigh...

bgiere

The C6R might well be more than $1 million per car....There are not many production parts, if any, on the Corvette. GM is a master at convincing people that the C6 they bought from a Chevy dealer is capable of winning in ALMS GT1! Let's hope Porsche brings some reality to GT1. Yes, the road going version will be very expensive, but at least it will share alot of components with the race version.

TheOtherEric

Well no crap. But similarly, the Porsche GT1 won't have much resemblance to its $500,000 street counterpart. Ok, so tack on a few hundred $thous to each, but the comparison is still the same. Anyway my point is that it takes Porsche overkill to compete with something they should IMHO have no problem competing with.

Ritter v4.0

If they are both factory produced cars, in teh hands of factory drivers or privateers, they can sepnd what they like on them- it'll be the results that count.

That said, a new car with a new flat eight will take some time to develop and work the bugs out (re: RS Spyder) so don't chill the champagne yet. The 'Vettes and Am's look pretty strong.

Bull

What $500,000 street counterpart???? The patent (yes, European) is based on THE CAYMAN, with a flat 8 engine...NOT the CGT with a V10. Autocar (British weekly) carried the patent drawing. It was Autoweek, in their desire to sell magazines, who dressed the drawing up like a CGT based vehicle.

Think Cayman RS, like the GT3 RS today.

So what is the over kill, or do you see the Cayman as being that much better than the Corvette? Your "point" is erroneous!

Mark in Baltimore

Blame it on the Asians...

Or better yet, the "blacks".