68 replies to this topic

[SonnyViceR]

Let's settle it once for and all. What we have here are two Le Mans prototypes that have universally been deemed as the lowest of filth - at least in the realms of manufacturer backed entries - both performance and results wise, whatever we may think of the designs itself. But which was in fact the crappiest of crappy prototype projects?

 

AMR ONE

Year: 2011

Races run: 2x

Competition chassis: 2x

Le Mans qualifying gap to pole: +20.180s & +22.617s

Le Mans race results: DNF (4L) & DNF (2L)

Budget: Shoestring

Marketing: Non-existent

Initial performance expectations: From mediocre to low

Tub legacy effect: Pescarolo 03, Deltawing

 

GT-R LM Nismo

Year: 2015

Races run: 1x

Competition chassis: 3x

Le Mans qualifying gap to pole: +20.108s & +20.404s & +21.804s

Le Mans race results: NC (242L) & DNF (234L) & DNF (115L)

Budget: Mediocre

Marketing: Heavy

Initial performance expectations: From uber-dominating (likes of RLM hyping it) to mediocre or somewhat lower

Tub legacy effect: None

 

 

Edited by SonnyViceR, 20 February 2017 - 00:26.

[Topsu]

GT-R LM Nismo will go down as the biggest blunder and waste of money in Le Mans history.

[SonnyViceR]

I actually respect the Nissan purely as a design more, because at least it was revolutionary and played with the rulebook even if it failed in the end... however... I still have to vote it as the biggest joke of the century so far. Not only because AMR-One at least had the excuse of non-existent budget and obscure team operations, but also the way Darren Cox + his public relations minions + bribed media affiliates talked about the Nissan was bloody disgustingly done all the way through the year and even after the failures at LM. So AMR-One was less embarrassing overall, as funny it is to say it.

 

Interestingly, the Nissan will be  at the LM museum this year, which is pretty bold considering everybody thought they were gonna erase it from history books forever

Edited by SonnyViceR, 20 February 2017 - 00:41.

[Disgrace]

The Nissan was a calamity, but a fascinating calamity. The AMR-One loses for being boring.

[SonnyViceR]

The Nissan was a calamity, but a fascinating calamity. The AMR-One loses for being boring.

 

In a way it was bold for being open top, for three different reasons

A) They had run coupes in the past (even though the previous car was 99% Lola in reality)

B) The new 2011 rules clearly weren't favoring open tops in any shape or form anymore

C) Not only was Pug continuing with coupe, but Audi also rejected open tops for coupe for the first time since late 90's, so the "supposed opposition" was in entirely different strategy

Edited by SonnyViceR, 20 February 2017 - 01:05.

[kissTheApex]

I actually respect the Nissan purely as a design more, because at least it was revolutionary and played with the rulebook even if it failed in the end... however... I still have to vote it as the biggest joke of the century so far.

Agree with all of the above except for the part in bold. It wasn't even allowed to fail. They just stopped after the initial half assed effort. Had it worked with all components in place, albeit without the hyped capacity, I would have deemed it a failure, but just pulling the plug as they did is really the biggest motor sports joke of the century.

[SonnyViceR]

Agree with all of the above except for the part in bold. It wasn't even allowed to fail. They just stopped after the initial half assed effort. Had it worked with all components in place, albeit without the hyped capacity, I would have deemed it a failure, but just pulling the plug as they did is really the biggest motor sports joke of the century.

 

Yes but it probably would have still ranked around that biggest joke ballpark even had they continued to run it. Making 20 second performance gap to following year's LM would've been near impossible even if they got their horrid hybrid systems actually working and not failing all the time. It wasn't the only issue.

 

Of course AMR withdrew their piece of junk chassis silently too, but they brought back the old Lola for few ILMC and ALMS races afterwards, so they weren't as embarrassed by the whole thing as they still made dedication to show up

Edited by SonnyViceR, 20 February 2017 - 01:48.

[BMWTeamBigazzi]

Am sorry to step in, but was nobody watching Le Mans last year?? heartbreaking!!!! you wonder now if that was Toyota's last sniff at a Le Mans win?? 

 

I'd add Courage competition, and their C36, Mario and Michael Andretti drove this car, Lammers, Warwick, Emmanuel Collard, Franck Montagny et all?? Mario's last chance saloon that year!! to add a le mans win!!!

[TF110]

The Aston was worse. The Nissan tried to get back to racing but it's redesigned rear failed the crash tests. I think Renault said that's that and pressured Nissan to can it. It actually did laps, and soldiered on, the Aston flat out failed. 

Edited by TF110, 20 February 2017 - 04:42.

[TennisUK]

The Aston certainly had the worse engine but I submit the Nissan had by far the worst chassis.

[SilverArrow31]

The GT-R LM was such a disappointment for me that it has made me hate Nissan. It was so hyped up it had an ad at the super ball. It was so new and exciting at a time when the WEC and Le mans where becoming very appealing and it all turned into one massive train wreck, them quitting after one race was the worst part of it. Two years ago we had 11 lmp1-H cars at Le mans. Now we are back to 5.

Edited by SilverArrow31, 20 February 2017 - 06:52.

[TF110]

I think the fact that the management made some (lots) of dumb decisions goes unnoticed. Nissan even changed management. They tried to get the car back to racing but it looked like the upgrades to it were only that but not good enough to pass crash tests. Then there's no hybrid that was good enough to be had. Too much to do so Renault Nissan just dropped it. 

[FPV GTHO]

Part of me never wanted the Nissan to succeed, as that would probably lead Audi, Porsche and Toyota down a similar development path. The tech behind thr car was fascinating however. The Aston was the opposite for me: I wanted them to succeed, but the engine layout was wrong and so too was the open top chassis.

I think I would probably label the Nissan as worse though. So much hype around the project and they basically ran away afterwards.

[KinkyMasta]

I think people here get it wrong. As a car itself, the Nissan is worse, yes. I mean, Gené had the opportunity to drive it for Le Mans, and gave up his place.

 

But as project itself, as an engineering experiment, as a concept, the Nissan was very clever (In theory), and it could have changed everything.

 

Kudos to Nissan to come with something completely new and revolutionary and sticking with it instead of going down a safe route.

[messy]

The AMR-one was worse. Because it wasn't clever, or revolutionary, and it was still ****. After success using the Lola I really expected a lot more there, but it was such a disaster at Le Mans that it barely completed a lap did it? The Nissan gains points for being (on paper) quite a revolutionary, clever design and for all it was slow and riddled with problems they managed to run it through most of the race.

[thegforcemaybewithyou]

I believe the Nissan never managed to run with the hybrid part active. That can explain a big part of the gap they had.

[ensign14]

What's happened to the chassis?  Hacksawed into bits and buried a la Lotus 64?

[jcbc3]

Voted Nissan.

 

Vastly superior resources and still got it spectacularly wrong.

[rodnet1]

Voted for the Aston. Was utterly boring and produced rubbish results. Not lasting a quarter of an hour killed it for me. The Nissan at least was conceptually spectaculair and you could believe the hype. I remember really hoping that such alternative way of thinking would lead to great results. Dissapointment was far greater when the Nissan did not deliver but is was at least an interesting attempt. 

[muramasa]

Didnt even know about AMR ONE

[TheMidnight]

I remember seeing the AMR-ONE in 2011 in the factory and even before it ran, the engineers thought it'd be rubbish. 

 

One of my friends was re-doing some of the bodywork (overheating issues) and they seemed reasonable optimistic.....to last 2 hours at Le Mans 

[Nonesuch]

Nissan tried to do something highly unusual - and failed to both put in the required effort and to make it work. It wasn't impressive, but it sure grabbed everyone's attention.

Aston Martin was just terrible. They 'only' had to do what all the other teams managed to do, and still failed spectacularly. It's clearly the worst of the two.

[TennisUK]

I'm not sure I agree. Had the engine not continually fallen apart after a few metres the car itself may have been less terrible for a private entry (which is essentially what AMR are compared to the proper manufacturers). What we do know is that when the car was fitted with a Judd V10 it was a 'mere' 13.5 seconds off pole making it far more competitive than the Nissan ever was (or was likely to be).

 

The Nissan had the opposite issue - the engine seems to have been the only good thing about it. Obviously the fact they didn't get the hybrid unit working didn't help at all but the car was visibly slower than GT cars off the slow corners it was that bad.

 

I'd say they are tied for being awful, for different reasons.

[TennisUK]

Nissan tried to do something highly unusual - and failed to both put in the required effort and to make it work. It wasn't impressive, but it sure grabbed everyone's attention.

The problem is that 'attention' is all they wanted. Hence them putting stickers on the Delta Wing and doing the useless ZEOD gimmick a couple of years after that.

 

As you say they made a half hearted effort but the whole concept was seriously flawed from the start - hybrid notwithstanding it just wasn't going to work and they learnt the hard way. 

 

The whole thing was also dreadfully rushed (as was the AMR actually).

[Henri Greuter]

I vote for the Aston.

 

I hated the looks of the Nissan and the thought of it succeeeding and getting more of such cars scared the hell out of me.

But on paper and in theory the thing had so much going for it that I had to admire the guts of Nissan to even try it! And had the hybrid technology worked and with more time for testing etc, who knows how much better the car might have been by then. Not that I'm sure it would have been a success then, but still, it could have been a lot better.

But at least each of the three cars that started the race did more laps on their own power than the Astons combined! And that car had more conventional technology on board than the Nissans. If the Nissan was a gimmick compared with the Aston, then the `gimmick` surely perfomed a lot better than the more serious intended attempt.

 

 

 

 

Henri

Edited by Henri Greuter, 20 February 2017 - 12:14.

[BRG]

AMR-1:  what were they thinking?  Both on and off paper, it never looked like a competitive project.  But at least it was conceived, raced(ish) and dumped in comparative silence.  The fact that it's chassis became the equally hopeless Deltawing is rather ironic.

 

Nissan : there were a few good ideas in there and the engine was excellent.  But the hype surrounding it and the arrogance of Nissan in using the sport so blatantly for promotion* made it a distasteful programme from the get-go. Turning up to the greatest race in the world with a half-arsed effort was disrespectful to the sport - nobody would have countenanced it if, say Haas had turned up at Melbourne last year with no operational hybrid system!   Then to cut and run after getting all the publicity exposed it as the PR stunt that it really was.  I have no respect for Nissan any more.

 

So it's Nissan that get the raspberry, but with a dishonourable mention for Aston.

 

 

* I know, I know, they all use it for promoition but there are ways to do it without looking like cynical douches

[Imateria]

The AMR-One, Aston never had the money to remotely make a decent go of it and I can't understand why they ever thought it was worthwhile.

[Afterburner]

The Nissan was the most craptastically crap piece of crap crapwagon to ever crap its way around La Sarthe. The powertrain was crap, the chassis was crap, the operation was crap, and the idea was crap. And bringing three stunningly crappy examples of such a craptacular load of crap in the crappiest show of arrogance ever deserves an honorable mention. Honestly, when the best thing about a racing team is a crappy Super Bowl commercial, how can you be surprised when the ultimate result is–you guessed it–a steaming pile of crap?

[jcbc3]

Why don't you tell us what you really feel about the Nissan?

[B3ndy]

I feel for Nissan with the GT-R LM Nismo. I was at that Le Mans and it was just painful to watch. The car itself was so complex with the bodywork off, during the race the thing was running so hot the mechanics actually had buckets of water to throw on the thing before they could even work on it. At night it was spectacular, the breaks under load was like a firework display. We watched the team taking the thing apart, it was a monster.

 

We were camping next to some of the Nissan support team (so not directly involved but seemed to be close enough) and they were just broken. Over a post race beer they were talking about the amount of R&D that went into the car, the money could have funded a traditional three car team that at worst would have finished the race.

 

However for me while this all seems terminal I really applaud Nissan for trying to do something different. LMP1 is (was) so competitive leading up to 2015 they had to do something different if they were going to win, after all finishing the race isn't really the goal. It was heartbreaking to see the pictures that surfaced of the car just dumped by some bins at the end of the season, I was really rooting for them. So by result its probably the worst of the two, but not the worst effort, they really went for it. I would call it a spectacular failure.

[FLB]

There's one of the chassis at the Le Mans museum:

 

http://www.dailyspor...es-du-mans.html

[superden]

The AMR, by a country mile.

At least the Nissan was trying something different, even if it was fundamentally flawed. The AMR was dull, not even vaguely technically interesting and still crap on track as well.

Edited by superden, 20 February 2017 - 13:26.

[Izzyeviel]

AMR one was just pathetic. Didn't add anything, no attempt at trying something new, just a complete waste of time. At least Nissan tried and failed.

[SonnyViceR]

Anyone have quotes of Hindy enthuastically telling everyone at 2015 Silverstone 6 Hours how Nissan was going to crush others at Le Mans?

[HairyScalextrix]

The Debora makes both the cars in the poll look like champions.

[juicy sushi]

The Nissan was a bunch of great ideas let down by poor execution and inadequate commitment to development by Nissan.  So, a bigger embarrassment as it was Nissan that failed to do the job, rather than the car itself.

 

The marketing effort was great, the creativity was wonderful.  A competent manufacturer with the recognition of the need to test and develop the thing could have probably made it work.

 

The Aston was just a shitbox that seemed thrown together for no intelligible reason whatsoever.

 

Nissan was worse, for over-promising and under-delivering. 

[JHSingo]

The Nissan, purely for all the PR crap they spouted along the way. They ended with egg firmly on their face. While the Aston was awful, I can't remember them ever making ludicrous claims about how good it'd be.

Never has the old Top Gear expression "ambitious, but rubbish" ever been more appropriate.

Edited by JHSingo, 21 February 2017 - 19:43.

[BRG]

The Debora makes both the cars in the poll look like champions.

To be fair, both the Nissan and AM efforts were credible compared to the wonderful Life F1 car.  Now there you have the failure of failures.

[Mat13]

Nissan. For six months before Le Mans you couldn't even watch American Football without seeing an advert- and that cock-up was the result.

[SonnyViceR]

To be fair, both the Nissan and AM efforts were credible compared to the wonderful Life F1 car.  Now there you have the failure of failures.

 

That was more comparable to privateer LMP1/LMP2 project, than the two factory prototypes here.

 

I could've included recent privateer prototype failures that only run one or two races here as well, such as Pescarolo 03, Domes in both LMP1 and LMP2, HPD ARX-04, the never-left-Africa Pilbeam and Bailey LMP2s and so on, but I decided to keep it at factories because those are the ones barking most feelings as well as generally being more known for.

Edited by SonnyViceR, 21 February 2017 - 20:50.

[Talisman]

I vote Aston. The Nissan failed because Torotrak could not deliver an ERS system to the agreed specification so the car had to run without throwing a lot of other factors out of balance. Arguably Torotrak's failure was out of their hands. Nissan are to blame for pulling the plug once all the major issues had been resolved though.

[SPBHM]

I voted for the GTR because I think it was a more expensive project and with all the hype possible

Edited by SPBHM, 22 February 2017 - 02:20.

[TF110]

The Nissan had issues top to bottom. But it still soldiered on and didn't quit or fail less than a stint into the race! That's why I voted for the Aston. The Nissan had serious traction and traction control problems, that's why it was slow through tight turns. That's on top of the fact that it didn't have bespoke tires specifically designed to run the loads the fronts were dealing with.

[Peat]

I voted Nissan, purely because Darren Cox got on my t!ts.

[TennisUK]

He does seem to be fairly odious.

[Lennat]

Really hard choice.

 

It is VERY impressive to build a fairly conventional car that still manages to be THAT slow, but equally impressive to create a radical new concept which is TOTAL CRAP, and still somehow find the data to support it is a good one. They blamed the energy recovery systems, but if you looked into the numbers it only explained a rather small part of the performance gap to the other cars. It was indeed a totally crap car. 

 

I think I will have to vote for the Nissan.

[chunder27]

Aston obviously as it did nothing, and did very little for all concerned.

 

At the very least the Nissan gained a huge amount of publicity for the company, raised awareness of WEC and got an awful lot of people clicking and finding out rmoe about it.

 

The Aston did none of those things, regardless of whether it was any good on the track or not.

 

The Nissan, both the GTR and the Deltawing, aroused huge fascinating and interest, and even if it failed the people concerned would have learned an awful lot about engineering, what works and does not and the issues involved.

[TennisUK]

What's happened to the chassis?  Hacksawed into bits and buried a la Lotus 64?

There's a Nissan at the ACO's museum at the track for the next 12 months apparently. The Aston chassis was turned into a Pescarolo 03 and also the first Deltawang. I recall hearing that part of the business case for the AMR-One is that buyers were found for a number of the race chassis. The nature of the buyers was I recall more along the lines of 'collector' than 'racer'. It's hard to believe any 'racer' would be interested in the AMR-One to actually race without some pretty major modifications (like the other two projects).

[wrighty]

I voted AMR-ONE, the Nissan suffered badly from being a flawed new concept but the Aston was terrible execution of a well tried and tested concept so i personally think that misses the mark by much more as a result.

[Archer]

The Nissan, they had a lot more resources and they failed even before the first engineer started his computer for the first time, because their concept was flawed since the very first moment. An FWD was always going to be a failure, it is as simple as think in vector mentality, you can't steer and accelerate the car very hard at the same time because the grip is finite, the grip you use to steer is grip you can't use to accelerate. In a RWD car the front tyres only have to steer the car, while the rear tyres push the car forward. Also the weight balance would have been hard to manage and was going to be always an understeering car, even if they can makeup this with aero and chassis, and the front tyres were condemned to have an earlier degradation than in a RWD car. In my opinion it was only a marketing scheme to get a lot of publicity, in the same way as it was before with the 2 previously failed Doritos cars (delta wing, and the deltawing electric).

 

The Aston Martin just lacked engineering hours because of the lack of funding of the project. But the concept was ok.