The 23rd annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, scheduled for March 11, 2018, at the Golf Club of Amelia Island on the grounds of the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida, will feature the 200-mph, 1,000-horsepower Grand Touring Prototypes that thrilled audiences a quarter century ago. GTP cars were the spiritual descendants of the mighty, unlimited Can-Am racers of the ’60s and ’70s and opened the door to a new generation of automotive performance and technology. By the end of the GTP era in 1993 they had eclipsed every major record the fabled Can-Am racers set, and several of those records still stand today.
“Long distance endurance racing has its roots in the pursuit of automotive progress and excellence,” said Tim Pendergast, Director of Operations of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. “While much of today’s motorsport menu is little more than motorized entertainment packaged to sell consumer products, endurance racing was created long ago to prove and improve the automobile, its operating systems and even its driving environment.”
The GTP class arrived as the automotive electronics revolution blossomed and changed everything; precise engine management and ground-effects led a wave of technological advances that propelled automotive evolution.
Innovation that had been the currency of Formula One and the Indy 500 became the engineering bedrock of the GTP cars that raced for 12 hours at Sebring and 24 hours at Daytona. GTP races were relentless battles by major manufacturers and privateers at speeds above 200 mph, day and night, rain or shine.
“Jaguar, Nissan, Toyota (above, Geoff Hewitt photo), Chevrolet, Ford, Mazda, BMW and Porsche, especially Porsche, stepped up and fought the GTP wars from Daytona to Del Mar,” noted Pendergast. “It was a very exciting time for North American road racing. For many race fans the GTP era marks the beginning of motorsport history. GTP racing seduced them.
“We have a full class of significant IMSA GTP winners and champions plus a GTP seminar for hard core GTP fans . . . and 25 years after the final IMSA GTP race, I’m still one of them.”
Emerson Fittipaldi, Amelia’s Guest of Honor for 2018, made the first start of his “second career” in a GTP machine at the Miami Grand Prix. For further information please visit www.ameliaconcours.org
