Objective:
This mod is an effort to recreate the 1967 Sports Car Manufacturers Championship.  This was perhaps the pinnacle year of the Sports Car series in which featured intense competition, unlimited budgets and amazing innovation.  It was also the last year of the fearsome 7.0 liter prototypes, as in ’68 the maximum engine size was limited to 3.0 liters.  This year saw an intense battle between Ford and Ferrari for supremacy at Le Mans. Ford spared no expense to beat Ferrari by developing the GT40 MKIV and Ferrari countered with the potently beautiful 330 P4. Chaparral introduced the space aged 2F which showed the future with a high mounted rear wing and side mounted radiators. Also Lola introduced the classic T70 MKIII which became very popular with privateers.

It was always my dream to be able to compete (virtually) in this series and since no sim has yet to model this series, it was up to me to create my own!

 

Mod History:
This mod started life way back in 2002 when I was first exposed to GPL.  I was immediately sucked in by this brilliant simulation and the wealth of add-ons available.  I was inspired by the work of the GPLEA and decided to try creating a brand new car for use in GPL.  To that date only improvements of the original 7 cars had been attempted.  I thought that GPL could be vastly improved if we could create new car models to replicate other race series.  At the time I had a real desire to race a ’61 Ferrari 156 “Sharknose”, so I embarked on a method of implementing this car in GPL.  Little did I know how hard, and how much effort this would entail! 

I started by investigating the only editing tool available, GPLTrackEditor.  Although a good tool in its own right it was never designed for car editing and was way too cumbersome to use for creating a new car.  The next thought was to use a 3D modeling tool, such as 3DStudioMax, to develop the model and then somehow port the model into GPL.  After much experimentation I figured out a process to convert a 3ds model into GPL format utilizing Phil Flack’s ASE23DO tool for the conversion.  (I’ll be posting some basic instructions on how to do this on this website shortly).  This allowed me to finally get some rudimentary models into GPL which was enough to spur me on!

Now that I could get rudimentary models into GPL the challenge was to actually make them look good! This involved learning how to model in 3DStudio, program in C code, learn the structure of car 3DO files and how to HEX edit them! Unfortunately the ASE23DO utility lacked the capability to enable lighting effects on the GPL model and therefore produced very flat and un-lifelike models. The solution to the problem was to write a program that could read a 3DO file and completely rebuild it with lighting effects added. The result is very lifelike models which produce the proper dynamic highlighting effects just like the original cars.

At this point I was encouraged enough to start thinking that anything was possible, so when I read a thread on the forums about how modeling closed wheel cars in GPL would be impossible, I immediately decided to prove them wrong! Sigh.... I finally succeeded but only after many months of tedious experimentation! I found a simple model of a Porsche 550 spyder and went to work. Many hours later I had a simple test mule in which to perfect the complexities of body panel clipping around the wheels. I then moved on to a simple GT40 model and a Lancia Stratos. These early models were rather crude but none the less they were released to the community as prizes for winning one of Mad Cowies rally championships!

I had lots of ideas on how to improve these cars so decided that I would give the GT40 some company in the form of a Ferrari P4. Unfortunately the Ferrari turned out so well that that I really had to redo the GT40 to match it.... and you can't have a GT40 and a P4 without adding a Chaparral 2F and Lola T70.....

....and so began the multi-year process of developing 7 different cars to complete the 1967 Sports Car Prototype field. All cars, including the GT40, were created from scratch and detailed to be as historically accurate as possible. Along the way it was decide to create a full blown mod around these cars at which point many talented people have offered to provide help and assistance. The result is that now additional tracks are being built, teams/drivers are being researched and new physics are being tested with the ultimate goal of producing a truly realistic and historically accurate simulation. Hopefully I have captured all the people that are helping to pull this together on the Credits page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that completes a rather long-winded history of how this mod came to be! Unfortunately I can't tell you when this mod will be released as there is still much to be done, but when it is finally released I sincerely hope that you all enjoy it!

Rory