Where is the real thing?

If you were among the pilgrims at Le Mans back in June and happened to visit the museum, you might have believed that you’d got to rest your eyes on a real Nissan GT-R LM NISMO.

Any American readers might have had the same thought if they’ve taken a trip to the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville recently. Both sets of museum-goers would have been labouring under a misunderstanding.

The two examples of Nissan’s 2015 front-wheel-drive LMP1 contender on display are most definitely showcars. Which begs the question, what happened to the real things? Of the four monocoques produced, only one survives. Nissan says it’s at the Zama heritage centre in Japan, but it appears that right now it isn’t on display.

The Japanese manufacturer has confirmed that three of the four tubs built were destroyed for what Nissan global motorsport boss Mike Carcamo says were “legal reasons”. The GT-R LM that survived the crusher was the car that raced in the 24 Hours in blue-and-red livery, driven by

Lucas Ordonez among others.

There’s a good reason why anyone might have been fooled by the cars on display at Le Mans and in Nashville. They were built by Bob Salisbury Engineering (whose business has since been taken over by KS Composites). The sometime Formula 3000 entrant was one of the leading constructors of showcars, with a client list including Red Bull Racing.

They do look like the real deal, even from within the cockpit, as this writer can attest after sitting in one. We can be thankful, however, that both showcars still exist. One was rescued from the P1 team’s Indianapolis headquarters in a midnight dash, reputedly by Nissan USA motorsport boss Rick Kulach, after the programme was halted in December 2015 and staff locked out of the building.