{"id":11453,"date":"2024-07-09T15:45:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-09T15:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/?p=11453"},"modified":"2024-07-10T07:22:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T07:22:33","slug":"the-superlatives-gather-in-the-hague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/?p=11453","title":{"rendered":"The superlatives gather in The Hague"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Supercars, GT1s, prototypes. You can \u2013 and should \u2013 go see the supercars of the 90s that have currently gathered in the Louwman Museum in The Hague, in Holland.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s that first image that strikes you, as you enter the main hall of the Louwman Museum, situated just outside the city centre in The Hague. Right in front of you, you see the Toyota GT-One and the Nissan R390 GT1. When does that ever happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Reading the rulebook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Both the Toyota and the Nissan are part of the nineties GT1 craze. What started out as racing series for the most extreme GT cars \u2013 think Ferrari F40, McLaren F1 \u2013 quickly got out of hand when the manufacturers realized there was a loophole in the regulations. Somewhere in the development of Appendix J of the FIA rule book, the number of cars that was necessary for homologation in the GT1 category was defined rather vaguely. At one point it looked like one production car was enough, at another point, it seemed that the intention of producing one was deemed sufficient. It led to some bonkers cars that were destined for the road, but really only served a racing purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Erik Comas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Nissan R390 GT1 is a car you probably know very well. Only one road car exists, safely tucked away with Nissan in Japan. But as you may remember from issue 8<\/a>, former racer Erik Comas \u2013 who was part of Nissan\u2019s works team at Le Mans in the nineties \u2013 has homologated one of the former race cars to road spec, complete with its own \u2018Le Mans\u2019 registration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erik was at hand at the Louwman Museum and confirmed the homologation process is now officially complete, meaning he now owns the only other R390 GT1 that can go out on the public road. His car came sixth at Le Mans in 1999 and is the last of the nine produced cars. Comas carried out a full restoration of the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next to that is the Toyota GT-One. This car resides with Toyota and is the road car needed for homologation to go racing. Toyota would come close to winning Le Mans with the GT-One in 1999, but couldn\u2019t beat the BMW V12 LMR prototype. The GT-One here features a roadcar interior and 3.6-litre twin-turbo V8 engine giving 550 hp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Porsche and Mercedes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Standing with it are two of the other infamous GT1s; the 1998 Porsche 911 GT1 and the 1997 Mercedes CLK GTR. The Mercedes dominated the 1997 FIA GT world championship and the Porsche won Le Mans in 1998. By then, it was clear that these cars really were just homologation specials. Mercedes did honour their commitment and built 28 road cars, but these were only delivered two years later. And of this generation of the Porsche 911 GT1, there was only the one road car that has remained with Porsche ever since. The car in the expo is the actual prototype that was used for testing, in bare carbon. Gorgeous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

BMW\u2019s abandoned M8<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, there is the Holy Grail of the 90s supercars: the McLaren F1. In white, even rarer. And of course, the Ferrari F50. Itself born out of an abandoned GT1 project, and thus a way for Ferrari to recuperate some of the costs. In close proximity, a car that never was. From the cellars of BMW Group Classic, you get to see the BMW M8 that never happened. The 6-litre V12 looked promising enough, and with weight-saving measures (no rear seats), it would have been a serious tool. Alas, only the one prototype was ever made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo Dirk de Jager<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Supercars of the nineties is a special exhibition, running until September 1st<\/sup>. More info here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supercars, GT1s, prototypes. You can \u2013 and should \u2013 go see the supercars of the 90s that have currently gathered in the Louwman Museum in The Hague, in Holland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[139,206,870,119,1600,123,280,527,137,1601,319],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-11453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing-related-products","tag-bmw","tag-ferrari","tag-gt1","tag-le-mans","tag-louwman-museum","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes","tag-nissan","tag-porsche","tag-supercars","tag-toyota","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Louwman-6.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11481,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11453\/revisions\/11481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11453"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taziomagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fthb-sponsors&post=11453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}