Daytona Prototypes: Hideous Abominations or Historical Throwbacks?

As many know, I have a very unconventional view regarding the physical appearance of racecars. I have always felt that a good racecar is an extremely safe machine that does its job so well you forget whether or not it's ugly. The show the cars put on is infinitely more important than what the cars look like standing still.

The Dallara IndyCar is a great example of this. Its oval trim is absolutely hideous, yet it puts on such a great show in most races that it's easy to forget just how ugly it really is.

The new F1 aero regulations have drawn a lot of criticism with the interim cars we've seen thus far. But, having not seen them in action, I'm reserving my judgment on them.

Still, in the world of racing right now, there is a class of vehicle so hideous that even those who have never seen them know of the horror...They are...the Daytona Prototypes!

The DP is the epitome of "safety first." Every single regulation governing their design was built around making them the safest racecars imaginable. Then they worried about cost and then performance, not even considering the appearance along the way.

As a result, only one Daytona Prototype, the Multimatic MDP1, has ever truly looked good. I've often described it as looking like someone shrunk a Bentley Speed 8.

There is no doubt that the current Daytona Prototypes are the absolute most hideous machines in the entire history of racing. But is that all there is to them?

No. Because these cars put on some of the best racing you will ever see. They do their job better than NASCAR, IndyCar, and—dare I say it?—even Formula One and the American Le Mans Series.

They're not excessively aero-sensitive. They don't flip over at the slightest breath of a crosswind. They don't move like slugs around hairpin corners.

In terms of overall capability, they are perfect. If they only looked better, I'd classify them as the greatest racecars on Earth. And I prefer the ALMS to Grand-Am!

But even that isn't all there is to these things. Remember what I said about the only good-looking DP, the Multimatic? Well, the other cars are very similar.

Just the other day, I was watching video on YouTube of old IMSA GT races, and I suddenly got the weird feeling I'd seen this before. But I hadn't—I wasn't exposed to racing until 1993, when IMSA GT was dying. I'd never watched an IMSA-sanctioned event until I first started watching the American Le Mans Series in 2006. So why did the racing seem so familiar?

A few minutes later, I was watching a crash compilation video, which happened to include a Daytona Prototype crash. Then it hit me: The old IMSA GTP cars felt so familiar because they're what Daytona Prototypes should have looked like. The Multimatic looks like a squished Bentley Speed 8, but all the other DPs look like squished IMSA GTP/Group C racecars.

And the racing is just as good. A bit slower, but just as exciting.

What are Daytona Prototypes? Are they truly hideous abominations that should be burned at the stake for the crime of being demon-spawn? Or are they just a poorly visualized attempt at reviving the past?

I say the latter. I say that Grand-Am is the closest thing to IMSA GT currently running. The DPs are a historical throwback, built to prioritize safety over speed. And perhaps someday the rules will be revised a bit, and we'll see them become even more like the beautiful machines of old. Already they can invoke images of the old Porsches fighting with the old Jaguars and Nissans, and even seeing the Corvette GTP poke its nose in now and then.

And if they can already remind us of that, imagine how good it could be if they tweaked the regulations a bit.

Even so...I'd rather watch ALMS.