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30 Apr 2008  - 

The Oreca endurance car

© JEC

The fabulous curves of the Team Oreca Le Mans sports car proved irresistible to visitors and the media at the JEC Composites Show in Paris during April 1, 2 and 3, 2008.

The centrepiece of the Huntsman Advanced Materials stand at the Show, the Oreca car was there to promote the exciting new development partnership between Oreca, one of Europe’s leading Le Mans and Endurance motorsport teams and Araldite®, one of the world’s leading developers and suppliers of composites and industrial adhesives.

The latest Courage Oreca LC70 prototype car is being developed and built using the most advanced Araldite® composite systems and RenShape® stereolithography materials available.

After being launched to the motorsport world at the Oreca factory in France on 1 April 2008, both Courage Oreca LC70 prototype cars gave impressive performances in their first competitive outing at the Circuit de Cataluyna, Barcelona on 6 April. They battled hard with the best endurance teams in the world for a podium spot for most of the race, before finishing for testing purposes only after experiencing late gear box problems.

At a press conference held by Araldite® and Oreca during JEC, André Genton, VP Global Operatiing Officer, Huntsman Advanced Materials and Hugues de Chaunac, founder of ORECA Motorsport, both reinforced the importance of their unique partnership in pushing composites technology forward.

“This special partnership will give us the opportunity to test new composites and adhesives at the very limit of their performance,” said André Genton. “What we learn with Oreca, we can confidently transfer to the mainstream automotive manufacturing industry knowing that if these Araldite® materials can perform well at the extremes of motor sport, they will more than meet the demands of everyday motoring.”

Mr de Chauanc added “Working with the Araldite® team gives us access to the very latest composite materials, technologies and the unrivalled expertise of their development team. Without doubt this will yield a very important competitive edge for Oreca and while there is a lot of work yet to be done to successfully meet our race condition challenges, we are all very excited about our prospects at the toughest motorsport endurance test of them all at Le Mans in June.”

Source : Huntsman