Death of the DeltaWing: What went wrong? | #TBT

story by steven cole smith • photos courtesy nissan unless otherwise credited

And this is where it ends, the story of the loopy, love-it-or-hate-it DeltaWing that was, inarguably, among the most revolutionary race cars of your lifetime–regardless of when “your lifetime” began.

That ending is being written at Wire Wheel Classic Sports Cars, the Vero Beach, Florida, dealer that specializes …

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Too bad there isn’t another chassis. Buy two, weld them together and have a proper 4 wheeled racer. Sell the rest of the expensive parts off and hope to come in under budget for the challenge. (Largest stretch I’ve ever attempted...)

Love this story!  Steven Cole Smith always finds the hidden nuggets in any story and brings them to light.

This is probably my favorite story to come out in the magazine. Wait, am I allowed to pick favorites?

Free pass to enter the $2018 challenge with this?

I'll bet I could get a free pass for Lemons.

I am 100% positive I could not get $375K.

We saw Hayes from Wire Wheel this past weekend. The DeltaWing is still available. And, yes, Steven is an awesome, awesome writer. It's a pleasure to work with him. 

it's a shame these cars were so hated, they had a lot of potential.

The only design goal chassis 001 met was, it actually went around a tight corner.   Other than that, it was a failure, struggling to run LMPC class times..  Subsequent cars had to just about double the hp the be competitive.

It's a shame that it's a coupe for sale, and not a roadster.  The roadster looked badass.  The coupe just looks...

I saw the Delta Wing race at Daytona in 2016--and it was a lovely thing to behold. I was in the Ferrari hospitality trailer--actually two trailers that transformed into three-level, air-conditioned grandestands with catering and a shopping. Everyone was into the Delta there that night. Until it crashed into that dead car in Turn 1. We all stood there, hoping they could get the thing back together. It didn't really look that bad as they hauled it out, and I was surprised to hear that it was toast. So glad I got to see it in its natural habitat. 

Stuff like this is how we make progress.  Or not.  But it sure was fugly, and I'm glad it's gone.  Now if we could get rid of some more of the aero ugly race cars of today ......

racerfink said:

The only design goal chassis 001 met was, it actually went around a tight corner.   Other than that, it was a failure, struggling to run LMPC class times..  Subsequent cars had to just about double the hp the be competitive.

Given that that one of the big benefits was pace vs. fuel economy- a quick look at the results suggest that it's ability to run much longer than the LMP2 cars, it may have spent enough less time in the pits to make up for the lap time loss. 

If everything works out, a pit stop was roughly 1/2 lap in time, so every 2 pits stops avoided is a lap made up.

It can also be said that the original Nissan engine wasn't nearly what it was supposed to be, whereas subsequent engines were, so when it was leading at Daytona, that was more indicative of what it was supposed to be at LeMans.

I certainly would not call it a failure.  It wasn't NEARLY as bad as many of Mazda's individual efforts have been.  Those were failures.

Fun fact, a division of the company my father used to work called Indicon made some data-logging equipment that was on the Deltawing and they flew some of the employees down there to watch it race.

AaronBalto said:

I saw the Delta Wing race at Daytona in 2016--and it was a lovely thing to behold. I was in the Ferrari hospitality trailer--actually two trailers that transformed into three-level, air-conditioned grandestands with catering and a shopping. Everyone was into the Delta there that night. Until it crashed into that dead car in Turn 1. We all stood there, hoping they could get the thing back together. It didn't really look that bad as they hauled it out, and I was surprised to hear that it was toast. So glad I got to see it in its natural habitat. 

I saw it run there in 2016 as well. It was so much faster than everything else on track. With how much IMSA obsesses over BOP, to have it be that much faster was a bit obnoxious. It seemed the fix was in. Till it hit the PC car that had been sitting there for quite a while. How the driver didn't know the car was there in turn 1 is beyond me.

It seemed like every race it had a transmission blowing up, or an engine, or people running into it because it was so hard to judge where the front end was. My friend and I used to place bets on how long it would last in each race. LOL

I didn't think the enclosed version was too bad.  I wish I could find the shot of me standing next to it, you can't imagine just how small this thing is.  

alfadriver said:

racerfink said:

The only design goal chassis 001 met was, it actually went around a tight corner.   Other than that, it was a failure, struggling to run LMPC class times..  Subsequent cars had to just about double the hp the be competitive.

Given that that one of the big benefits was pace vs. fuel economy- a quick look at the results suggest that it's ability to run much longer than the LMP2 cars, it may have spent enough less time in the pits to make up for the lap time loss. 

If everything works out, a pit stop was roughly 1/2 lap in time, so every 2 pits stops avoided is a lap made up.

It can also be said that the original Nissan engine wasn't nearly what it was supposed to be, whereas subsequent engines were, so when it was leading at Daytona, that was more indicative of what it was supposed to be at LeMans.

I certainly would not call it a failure.  It wasn't NEARLY as bad as many of Mazda's individual efforts have been.  Those were failures.

Seeing as it was an LMP1 car though...

I never understood the hate on the Deltawing. Yes, it looks different, and certainly looks a LOT different than anything on the track since the days of Tyrrel 6 wheeler, but I never found it offensive. I personally find it better looking than most of what is on the grid these days.

It does, however, prove one thing. Modern Race Cars do not need the super wide wheel base. They don't lean any as it is, so the need to keep the wheels widely spread is overstated.

The wide track is to minimize weight transfer, which happens whether the car leans or not. This car had most of its weight at one end - and that end had a wide track. 

In reply to mad_machine :

Hated?  Not by me.  Well, the hardtop preggo version was disliked by me, I admit.  But I love the first gen.

I was at Sebring in '16 when the Deltawing made some laps on Thursday morning (I think). Everyone ran for the fences, they'd never seen anything like it. I knew some of the folks at the Nissan display in the infield so I wandered over, hoping I could talk my way into a better look. They had NO IDEA what was going on! There it was, the Deltawing with NISSAN on the sides, and Nissan NA had no knowledge that Nissan Europe was there running it! Right hand, I'd like you to meet left hand...

I think someone should pick up where it left off and make it an all electric racer.  

Finally, everyone gave up on this misconceived concept. Can't recall any race car design that was such a complete failure, over so many yrs of dogmatic "development". At least it added a bit of variety to the grid, though it failed to complete most of the races it entered. 

racerdave600 said:

I think someone should pick up where it left off and make it an all electric racer.  

this might be the best use for it. the lack of aero drag would be a big help in endurance.

Obviously, only Bruce Wayne can take this project to the next level.....

RLF said:

Finally, everyone gave up on this misconceived concept. Can't recall any race car design that was such a complete failure, over so many yrs of dogmatic "development". At least it added a bit of variety to the grid, though it failed to complete most of the races it entered. 

Why was it a misconceived concept?  

How does it getting run off the road or having engine failures make the concept bad?  It was fast, with less power.  Worked great until everyone decided that they wanted to keep cars looking like they do.

I just don't get calling it a failure when it showed a lot of speed and many of the "failures" were caused by other drivers.