Project Petrolhead

International Motorsport is no place to stand out. Each class is based on strict rules and regulations to make sure that each car has as much chance of winning as everything else on the grid. That must be why, for one night of the year, one racing team is allowed to go wild. For each of the 55 competitors at Le Mans on any given year, there is one more team that turns up with something extra special: They’re know as Garage 56.

In 2009, Nissan hopped into Garage 56 with a team of their best engineers and a mad plan: To build a car that could keep pace with the other competitors on the grid but use as little fuel as possible. The thinking was that, while other teams would be in the pits refuelling, Nissan’s car would still be soldiering on for the whole 24 hours. Recruiting British designer Ben Bolwby and pairing him with an all-star team including Dan Gurney (inventor of the Gurney Flap), Duncan Dayton and Don Panoz, the team devised a car with an incredibly small frontal area, super-skinny wheels and a miniscule 1.9 litre engine. The result was branded as the Nissan DeltaWing, and lined up on the grid for the 2012 Le Mans 24 hours. While it was forced to retire after colliding with a Toyota LMP1 car after 75 laps, the DeltaWing team were not done, returning in 2014 with the Nissan ZEOD RC, a coupe version of the DeltaWing’s open-top design with an even smaller 1.5 litre 3-cylinder hybrid engine. Managing to achieve 300km/h on Le Mans’ Mulsanne Straight (186mph in old money), the ZEOD was forced to retire once again after a gearbox failure.

In 2016, Garage 56 became home to a new type of experimental prototype, only this one didn’t test new types of propulsion or aerodynamics, it tested – for want of a better term – a new type of driver. Successful businessman and avid Le Mans enthusiast Frédéric Sausset became quadriplegic in 2012 after a bacterial infection attacked his limbs, ending his dream of competing in Le Mans overnight. But he refused to let that stop him. Working with the SRT-41 racing team, Sausset purchased a Morgan LMP2 and set about adapting it with a thigh-controlled throttle and a specially designed prosthetic attachment for steering. In an interview with French broadcaster RTL, Sausset said “This is a dream for me, but I also want to send a message to everyone around the world with a sever disability. This is for them, to show them that nothing in life is impossible.” Finishing 38^th overall in 2016, impressive for a chap with no prior racing experience, even beating a good number of able-bodied participants, Sausset would receive a special commendation from ACO president Pierre Fillon during the podium ceremony. As for the team, SRT-41 would return in 2021, this time running a specially adapted ORECA 07 that allowed Japan’s Takuma Aoki and Belgium’s Nigel Bailly – both paraplegics – the opportunity to compete.

To date, the final Garage 56 competitor came in 2023, when a bunch of Americans presumably open an atlas for the first time and discovered that other countries have racetracks that go left AND right. I jest, of course, but 2023’s entry was indeed a NASCAR from America’s home-grown grassroots motorsport, piloted by local hero Jimmie Johnson, F1 alumni Jensen Button and Le Mans royalty Mike Rockenfeller. Perhaps anticlimactically, they trio only managed to secure 39^th place (second-to-last of all the competitors who actually managed to finish after several collisions put a halt to the races of several of the GTE cars), reinforcing the old stereotype of American cars and not wanting to go around corners. Shame, that.

As of yet, there has not been a Garage 56 entry announced for 2026, but I hope that the organisers go back to something truly experimental as these have been the entries that stick most prominently in the mind. Perhaps it’s time to finally try a full EV endurance racer? What about a Hydrogen fuel cell? We could even resurrect the turbine racers of the 60s and 70s with modern aerodynamics and tyre technology. Either way, I’m just glad that Le Mans allows these teams to let their hair down, albeit just for one 24 window in June.