MG-Lola EX257 - Development

Development

Following a resurgence for the MG brand in the beginnings of the 21st century, the decision was made to expand the brand into motorsports such as touring car racing as well as sports car racing. MG had previously had success at the 24 Hours of Le Mans many decades ago, yet had never scored an overall win. At approximately the same time, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) had changed the Le Mans Prototype regulations for Le Mans, making it possible for two different classes of prototype to be capable of taking an overall win. This class, known as LMP675, would use smaller turbocharged engines yet would be lighter and more nimble, making it possible for them to compete with the larger, more powerful LMP900 class.

Seeing an opportunity to use a production-based engine in an LMP675 instead of a custom built engine that would be larger than anything MG had in their production cars at the time, MG decided to enter into this new class in agreement with Lola Cars International. Lola had previously built cars in 2000, known as the B2K/10 and B2K/40, but they were not designed with the LMP675 regulations in mind. Lola would therefore have to build an all new prototype design that would center on the light weight and small engines of LMP675. Since the B2K/40 was more similar to the LMP675 regulations, many design elements of it were brought over for the new car, which Lola designated B01/60. The front fender design of the B01/60 was nearly identical to that of the B2K/40, yet the nose of the car would be radically different, incorporating a large square airbox (shaped like an MG grill) in the raised nose. The sidepods would also be radically different, using sweeping lines to better manage airflow both in and out of the car. A large single air inlet was placed on the top of the car, slightly off to the side of the cockpit in order to house the turbo inlet. Using a design element borrowed from the Audi R8, a single rollbar was used behind the driver, instead of a long rollbar that covered the entire width of the cockpit. In the rear, the wing was mounted low on the chassis in order to increase overall top speed. In the end, the EX257 would be very light, coming to approximately 690 kg at its launch (675 kg being the minimum allowed by the rules).

For an engine, MG would turn to Advanced Engine Research (AER) for construction of their engine and Garrett for turbocharging it. Using some elements of MG's production engines, the new 2.0 Litre turbocharged Inline-4 known as the MG XP20 (AER designation P07) would come to approximately 500 hp, limited by air restrictors put in place by the ACO to equalize cars.