Inside IMSA's Legendary GTP Race Cars: The Prototype Experience

Professional automobile racing has always been dominated by sanctioning bodies whose main goal was to ensure competition. That has meant seeing that cars are well matched--in body shape or chassis/engine combinations or engine size. But what about an all-out competition, in which one team's idea of the fastest race car could be pitted against another’s, regardless of mechanical “parity”? This was what the International Motor Sports Association’s (IMSA) Grand Touring Prototypes (GTP) race series was about. The Series ran from 1981 to 1993, and it was one of the most exhilarating racing experiences of all time. This book is the first to profile the amazing machines that resulted from the GTP’s flat-out competition among different--and passionate--ideas about what might be the fastest way around a track: the V-12 with its better ground-effect tunnels but higher center of gravity (CG); the flat six with its low CG but severely-restricted ground-effect tunnels; and others that employed elaborate wings and air dams. Here are the people behind this engineering free-for-all, the culmination of almost a century of automobile racing experience. And here are eighteen of the most competitive vehicles they designed. Using photography, diagrams, drawings and first-person accounts from the men who built them, Inside IMSA's Legendary GTP Race Cars offers a detailed look at the technology that drove some of the world’s most exciting race cars, the likes of which may never be seen again.

The International Motor Sports Association’s (IMSA) Grand Touring Prototypes (GTP) race series was an all-out competition, with one team's idea of the fastest race car pitted against another’s, regardless of mechanical “parity.” This book tells the story of the heart-stopping result, and of 18 amazing machines that came out of the GTP’s flat-out competition among different--and passionate--ideas about what might be the fastest way around a track. Using photography, diagrams, drawings and first-person accounts from the men who built the cars, the book offers a detailed look at the technology that created some of the world’s most exciting races, the likes of which may never be seen again.