Swift 66: ICONIC this!

IndyCar commentary — By More Front Wing Staff on April 1, 2010 9:13 pm

(Originally posted by Paul to Planet-IRL.com.)

Following the release of Swift #66 this afternoon, the following letter was confiscated from IRL CEO Randy Bernard’s files:

Dear Gen. Looney:

While we in the IZOD IndyCar Nation appreciate that you were willing to step up and head the committee created by the Indy Racing League to evaluate the concepts put forth for adoption by the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2012, it has been determined today that your services are no longer necessary. With the release this afternoon of Swift Engineering’s latest concept (seen here), the need for looking into any other options has been determined to be a fruitless and meaningless endeavor. On behalf of the legions of IndyCar fans around the world, we thank you for your time and sincerely apologize for any disruption that this project might have caused.

With Greatest Regards,
The IndyCar Nation

Okay, so maybe such a letter hasn’t actually been sent out, but you get my point.

Over the past couple weeks, Swift Engineering’s Rachel Nichols (@Pinkgineer) has been hinting that she had something up her sleeve and has been chomping at the bit to let all of us know about it. Ironically, she was released from the ball and chain on April Fool’s Day and threw down the gauntlet with Swift’s latest entry into the 2012 IZOD IndyCar sweepstakes, the Swift #66.

With CFD supercomputing assistance from Cray, Swift has once again sent notice that the 2012 IZOD IndyCar machine can be both sexy and functional. Of course, what we’ve been treated to today are nothing more than conceptual drawings at this point, though I suppose it is likely that gigabytes of computational models that backup the glitz exist somewhere out there in California. If the performance of the car can match the looks of the car, and of course meet all the other goals set forth by the Indy Racing League in February, the Swift #66 will make for an extremely fine-looking machine coming soon to a track near you. Of course, it would be nice if we could see the Swift 23, 32, 33, and 66 all together on the track at once, wouldn’t it? Rachel, can you make that happen for us? Maybe even just a nice little video? In the words of Planet-IRL friend Pressdog, it would be total car porn!