The Cougar C02 was a

Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for Touring car racing, touring cars and ''Group B'' for Grand tourer, GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 (motorspor ...

sports car prototype race car, designed, developed, and built by French constructor

Cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

in 1983, and used in

sports car racing Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing that uses sports cars with two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be either purpose-built Sports prototype, sports prototypes, which are the highest level in sports car racing; or grand to ...

from 1983 to 1984. It was the successor the C01. Its best result was at the 1984 500 km of Watkins Glen, where drivers Yves Courage and John Jellinek, and

Alain de Cadenet Alain de Cadenet (27 November 1945 – 1 July 2022) was an English television presenter and racing driver. He was noted for racing in 15 editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans during the 1970s and 1980s, achieving one podium finish with third ...

finished in 9th-place, respectively.

Development history and technology

The Cougar C02 is a closed Group C prototype, was developed and built by Yves Courage in 1985 and prepared for the respective races by his own racing team, Cougar. Powered by a

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

-derived

naturally aspirated A naturally aspirated engine, also known as a normally aspirated engine, and abbreviated to N/A or NA, is an internal combustion engine in which air intake depends solely on atmospheric pressure and does not have forced induction through a turboc ...

Ford-

Cosworth DFL The DFV is an internal combustion engine that was originally produced by Cosworth for Formula One motor racing. The name is an abbreviation of ''Double Four Valve'', the engine being a V8 development of the earlier four-cylinder FVA, which had f ...

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight- cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. Origins The first known V8 was the Antoinette, designed by Léon Levavasseur, a ...

, producing a respectable @ 9,500 rpm. This drives the rear wheels through a 5-speed

manual transmission A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canadian English, Canada, British English, the United Kingdom and American English, the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed ...

. The whole car weighed . This allowed it to reach a top speed of .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cougar C02 Le Mans Prototypes 24 Hours of Le Mans race cars Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Mid-engined cars Sports prototypes Cars introduced in 1983 C02 Group C