The 1989, ALD C289 Group C2 Sports Prototype, of Frank Lyons leading the Blue 1972, LolaT290 of Mark Richardson, during the HSCC Thundersports Race
ALD was the creation of Louis Descartes, a keen motor racing enthusiast who had begun his career in the French Hill Climb Championship driving such diverse cars as a Renault 8 Gordini and a Lola. The director of a public relations company from Levallois-Perret in Northwest Paris, Descartes formed his own racing team, ‘Automobile Louis Descartes’ (ALD) in 1984. Jean-Paul Sauvee was recruited to design and build a new Group C2 car for the team. Based around a conventional sheet-aluminium monocoque with triangulated front and rear suspension, the first ALD was powered by an ex-Schnitzer BMW M1-style, M80 440bhp six-cylinder engine. The ALD ‘01’ made its debut at Le Mans in 1985 driven by Louis Descartes himself, Jacques Heuclin, (the mayor of Seine-et-Marne) and Daniel Hubert, who had designed the car’s bodywork. As a small private constructor, one of the last in sports car racing, the team did well to make the finish of the 24-hour race. Between 1986 and 1988, ALD continued to develop the original car and produced chassis ‘02’, ‘03’ and ‘04’. All were BMW-powered and most of the C2 WEC/WSC rounds were entered. In 1989, chassis numbers ‘05’ and ‘06’ were built as customer cars for Didier Bonnet while a new works car was constructed using a carbon-fibre/honeycomb chassis powered by a Cosworth DFL Lola T280, and its evolutions, the Lola T282, Lola T284, and Lola T286, are a series of 3-liter Group 5 (and later Group 6) sports prototype race cars, designed by Eric Broadley, John Barnard, and Patrick Head, and developed and built by British manufacturer and constructor Lola, for World Sportscar Championship sports car racing, between 1972 and 1976
Size: 3559px × 2197px
Location: Silverstone Circuit, Towcester, Northamptonshire, NN12 8TN
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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