NISSAN CANADA - With European testing due to kick off this week for the Nissan DeltaWing, a new online film series highlighting the development of the revolutionary Le Mans 24 Hours entry was launched last week.
Commissioned by Nissan and hosted at the Nissan in Europe YouTube page, the multi-part series will highlight different aspects of the car's development and show the challenges of getting such an innovative project to its current stage and the huge task the team faces to finish the Le Mans 24 hours.
As it did with its similarly innovative Juke-R project, Nissan is breaking new ground in the way it makes the development process behind its highest-profile campaigns as accessible as possible.
New episodes of the film series will be launched roughly every two weeks between now and Le Mans and will culminate in a TV documentary, which will air after the endurance classic in June.
A Nissan film crew has followed the development of the unique racer, filming every move of Nissan DeltaWing designer Ben Bowlby and his engineering team as they have built the car, as well as recording how Nissan's 1.6-litre DIG-T engine has been developed to be the ideal partner engine for the project.
When the car races at Le Mans it will be thanks to a number of key partners in the project. In addition to Nissan and Bowlby, project managing partner Don Panoz has been key to the car's development, Dan Gurney and his All-American Racers organization has built the prototype car in California and Duncan Dayton's Highcroft Racing outfit and Michelin have also been heavily involved.
The first video in the series highlights the wind tunnel work on the car, carried out at the Windshear facility in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Ben Bowlby said: "We've had the Nissan film crew following our every move throughout the development of the car over the past few months and this will give the fans a great insight into the creation of the Nissan DeltaWing.
"It was a bit strange at first to have a camera poked under our nose all the time but, after a while, the guys really felt like part of the team.
"The finished product will be brilliant for the fans to get to see what goes on behind the scenes in the creation a project as unique as the Nissan DeltaWing.
"The wind tunnel work in particular was a key component of the project. The data we had from the scale model development and what our computer simulations told us showed we were moving in the right direction.
"Getting the full-sized car in the wind tunnel really cemented that. In fact, the final results actually exceeded our expectations."
Darren Cox, General Manager, Nissan in Europe, said: "As soon as Nissan's involvement with the DeltaWing project began and long before it was announced, we wanted to make sure that the challenge of bringing such a revolutionary car to the race track was properly recorded.
"This is an innovative project that could change the face of motorsport and the fans should be shown the full story. Too often motorsport development is hidden away and kept secret - Nissan want to make this exciting part of the sport accessible. These films will give some insight into the very steep learning curve the team faces to even get to the Le Mans 24 Hours."
To watch the series of films, visit http://www.youtube.com/user/nissanineurope