The Audi R8C, designed by Peter Ellerey and Tony Southgate, only took
part in the 1999 edition of the 24h of Le Mans. It is still probably
one of the most beautiful prototypes in Le Mans history.
Unfortunately, its performance did not match its elegance, mostly for
lack of development time.
Racing Technologies Norfolk built a
carbon fibre bodywork around a monocoque frame, all powered with a
358 cc V8 biturbo engine.
James Weaver said that the R8C, at one
time during the race, had become one of the best cars he had
ever driven.
None of the two competing R8Cs was able to
reach the end of the race. In the following years, Audi opted for an
open cockpit version of the R8 and the R8C became the basis for the
Bentley Exp Speed 8 project, which won the Le Mans 24 Hours in
2003.
This model reproduces the "presentation"
car in which the two sides differ in race number and driver's name.
Note that the model also correctly reproduces the shape of the
trilobate air intake on the nose, replaced in the race version by a
single gap intake.