It is difficult for designers and engineers to compromise in their pursuit of perfection when creating a racecar with restrictions often limiting what can be done. Well, the Peugeot 9X8 has won before it has even taken to the 2022 racing calendar with the award for most beautiful Hypercar at the Festival Automobile International.
The Peugeot 9X8 has won the “Grand Prize for the most beautiful Hypercar of the year” at the 37th Festival Automobile International which is an event that was first hosted in Paris during 1986 under the name Chamonix Automobile Festival. The annual event elects the finest automotive achievements in the world and the wingless Peugeot race car has taken a win home before the racing season has even kicked off.
First revealed in July of 2021, the wingless design incorporates contemporary aesthetic codes specific to the Peugeot brand. The most significant of these being the three-clawed light signatures of the Lion that have become a staple on their commercially available vehicles. Artistically portrayed at the start of the year by photographer Agnieszka Doroszewicz, the sleek design was further accentuated by the background which featured cold, brutalist architecture.
The interior is equally as recognisable to a new Peugeot on a showroom floor with the brand’s specific i-Cockpit concept centrally positioned in the cocooned cockpit. A high sense of ergonomic design has been placed into where the pilot spends his time to provide the most intuitive experience.
Matthias Hossann, Peugeot’s Director of Design stated on receiving the award that: “I am very proud to win this prize, which is an acknowledgement of the Design and Peugeot Sport teams’ work, who worked together on this project,”
It is not often a truly beautiful racecar is released with manufacturers festooning the bodywork with complicated aero bits and purely functional components but the Peugeot seems to have the best of both worlds, minus the rear wing of course!