Lanzante to celebrate 30th anniversary of Le Mans victory with Project 95-59
Lanzante Motorsport, the company that took the McLaren F1 to its first victory at Le Mans, will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the achievement by building a limited-run supercar based on McLaren underpinnings.
Project 95-59 is named after the winning year, 1995, and the number of the winning car, 59. Paul Howse, who also penned the McLaren P1, will design the new supercar in which you can expect a modern take on the F1 with the same driver-focussed three-seat layout and a power-to-weight figure of 700PS (515kW) per ton.
Much like the F1, Lanzante also wants the 95-59 to be usable with a tractable motor, decent range, a surprising amount of luggage space and service costs that should be more affordable than the F1's sky-high maintenance bills (Lanzante's experience maintaining F1s should be a big help).
The company's relationship with the McLaren F1 began in 1995, winning Le Mans with an F1 GTR driven by Yannick Dalmas, Masanori Sekiya and JJ Lehto. A win at the first time of asking is a feat only matched by Ferrari in 1949 – Porsche, Jaguar, Ford and Audi all failed to do the same.
However, Graham Humphrys, who engineered the race-winning F1 GTR, would later attribute much of the win to the rain which had dogged Le Mans that year; the wet track eased the stress on the F1's fragile gearbox. Humphrys discovered that gear selection problems encountered by the McLarens due to the exposed linkage filling up with water and dirt could be solved by applying liberal quantities of WD40 at every pit stop.
Whether the 95-59 will need the same treatment remains to be seen, but you will be able to see the car for the first time later this year when it makes its public debut at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard.
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