LTM 80G - The Ups and Downs of a Road car turned Race car in Denmark

Back in 2024, LTM 80G as has become its well known reference, found a new home in Denmark. Its new owner Michael met with myself in Copenhagen in the October of that year to discuss his plans to compete in various races in 2025 including the famous Copenhagen Grand Prix for Vintage sports cars, which has been run since 2001annually in the grounds of Bellahojvej in Copenhagen.

The car was entrusted to a local race preparation Team with initial track testing held in April of this year.

The car had been totally rebuilt by its previous owner, having required extensive lower chassis repairs (corrosion over its life) and body restoration (much modification had been caried out), whilst still retaining the wide wheel arches as fitted by a much earlier owner who had mildly sprinted and hill-climbed the car, who had also modified its suspension with the addition of rose joints, using adapters to retain its original chassis pick-up points. The car when purchased came with a fresh 1293cc Copper 'S' engine/gearbox and a bespoke hand-made exhaust system to better fit the car.

Testing went well enough, with lap times being low enough to be very encouraging. However as with any testing of a 'new to you' race car, a problem manifested itself towards the end of testing, when the rear clamshell side catches released, with the result that the lower rear mounting hinges parted company and the clamshell was badly damaged.

A local fiberglass specialist made short work of repairing the clamshell and new hinges were fitted along with further additional side latches.

Encouraged by the early testing the car was entered into the Classic Race Viborg 2025 in July with the car Qualifying well up in 7th place from the grid of 26-cars, driven by the Team principal Christian Cavazzi.

Heat 1 saw a wet race on this tight, poorly surfaced street circuit, with the diminutive Unipower GT making strong progress amongst the other entrants, such as Ford Escort BDA's, Mini's, Hillman Imps, Fiat Abarth's and Alfa Romeo's. A lot of standing water on the circuit made the conditions treacherous as can be seen on the attached YouTube video of Heat 1. Most likely due to the wet conditions, an ignition problem retired the car on the last lap, which was a huge disappointment, but maybe not totally unexpected with the limited testing undertaken in these conditions.

Heat 2 saw Christian line up in 17th place on the grid, but in now drying conditions. With the more predictable conditions, Christian made good progress, being able to better exploit the Unipower GT's agility as can be seen in the following YouTube video. But this was not to end well, as 2-laps before the end of the race (18:05 mins into the video), the Unipower would strike the concrete track barriers a hefty blow, with the car riding up onto the barrier. A real shame as I'm sure you will agree when watching the video, the Unipower was doing rather well in such a competitive field in its first outing.

Thankfully Christian was able to exit the car himself unharmed, however the resultant damage to the car was quite severe, impacting the front suspension tubular frame and pickup points as well as obviously most of the fiberglass body up to shortly before the windscreen.

Following the accident, Michael contacted me to discuss the options on how best to repair the car. New fiberglass panels were considered, but as he was anxious to see if it could be repaired before the Copenhagen GP in August, the option was taken to re-use the front body panels that had been removed from the car that Guy Monty is currently rebuilding. A very long journey was then embarked by Michael and some friends, who drove from Denmark via Germany to Cornwall and back to collect all the spare bodywork from Guy.

On returning the local fiberglass expert agreed that the used panels could be refitted no problem, but on further inspection, the damage to the chassis was not going to be so easy to repair, meaning that plans to compete in Copenhagen had to be cancelled. This is a terrible shame as the local residents around the Circuit, have managed to get the Historic race closed down and this year will be its last.

Currently, Michael, Christian and myself are looking to see if measurements can be taken from original Attila 5 drawings that I have been kindly given by the Unipower GT's designer a couple of years ago. The plan is to get the car ready to race again in 2026, such is the dedication and passion that its new owner Michael has for the car. Given its performance to date, I think the future is very bright for its return in 2026.

More updates on the progress as it happens in due course on the Unipower GT Blog pages.

Gerry