Solved: PN #533 -- Paul Flament's Formeco

[pnegyesi]

Please identify this racing formula for a point

[pnegyesi]

Experts?

[pnegyesi]

Professionals?

[nicanary]

VW based sans doubte. But why paired occupants? That's more like USSR style racing. Was it an off-road form of racing ?

[pnegyesi]

VW-based, sort of off-roader

[nicanary]

VW-based, sort of off-roader

"Sort of" off-roading is intriguing. Some for of motorised orienteering ?

[pnegyesi]

Okay, it was off-roading, let's stick to it

[nicanary]

Total guess - Strandrennen ?

[pnegyesi]

no. So let me rephrase my earlier "sort of off-roading" comment. These racers both on- and off-road

[faksta]

They're pictured on sand here, as far as I can see?

[pnegyesi]

yes - and welcome back Faksta

[faksta]

Thank you!
I'm so curious about these cars... From you said about racing both on and off-road, the first idea that comes to my mind is rallycross. Maybe some specific formula for rallycross then?

[pnegyesi]

not rallycross

[nicanary]

Vee-Cross ?

[pnegyesi]

Beg your pardon?

[nicanary]

Beg your pardon?

I thought it might be some form of rallycross for VW-based cars, so I made up a name. Like Formula Vee, but for a different type of car.

[pnegyesi]

You are in the right direction with made up names. It is about the Formula it was envisioned.

[faksta]

Was it a British formula? BP banners behind are the main reason I'd think so.

[pnegyesi]

not British

[Wendax]

Dutch?

[Tom_I]

I think this is the French Formule Économique or "Forméco". The cars were developed in the late 1960s by a garage owner called Paul Flament in the Pas-de-Calais département in northern France, initially as a way of recycling accident-damaged Volkswagens.

The floorpan was shortened, and a lightweight two-seater buggy style body fitted, with steel roll cage. I think it was initially seen as an instruction vehicle for young drivers interested in racing, but it was found to perform well on the beaches and sand dunes in the area, and became popular for racing in those conditions. I don't think it took off in a big way, and seems to have disappeared around the time of the oil crisis in the early 1970s.

[pnegyesi]

A perfect answer