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.

J. A. Martin has been an automotive journalist for over twenty-five years and wrote Prototypes: The History of the IMSA GTP Series for David Bull Publishing. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Michael J. Fuller is a wind tunnel model technician with Panoz/Elan Motorsports Technology. He has previously worked for racing notables Downing/Atlanta, Riley & Scott, Reynard, and C&B International in composite lamination and wind tunnel model making. He lives in Lawrenceville, Georgia. J. A. Martin has been an automotive journalist for over twenty-five years and wrote Prototypes: The History of the IMSA GTP Series for David Bull Publishing. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Michael J. Fuller is a wind tunnel model technician with Panoz/Elan Motorsports Technology. He has previously worked for racing notables Downing/Atlanta, Riley & Scott, Reynard, and C&B International in composite lamination and wind tunnel model making. He lives in Lawrenceville, Georgia. David Hobbs developed a passion for the Subaru Impreza Turbo when he was editor of CarWorld, an early website from CAR magazine. A test drive soon made him realize the Impreza was the car to own and he's never looked back since. His enthusiasm led him to join the UK-based Subaru Impreza Drivers Club where he quickly found himself elected editor of the club magazine, a position he held for three years. He has written on Imprezas and their rally-related exploits for Used Car Buyer, Practical Performance Car, Subiesport and Autosport.com and is the Motoring Editor for AOL (UK) Ltd.