Topic: Racing cars that stir the soul

[nicanary]

I would like to encourage members to tell me which racing cars, from any era, have made them say to themselves, "that's a car I like" for any reason at all. We've all seen on other websites the usual tedious "what's the best car of all time", or "what is the most beautiful car" type of thread - these can degenerate into the cultural level of a 15-year old girl on Facebook.

Racing fans often have a "secret" admiration of a particular car which maybe they have never shared with anyone. I would like to hear from you, preferably with an accompanying photo, and a brief explantion. If it's something as commonplace as a Lotus 49 or Porsche 917, then that's fine, but I want to know why you have selected it.

I'm going to start off with this, the Connew. If you don't know about the car, there are extensive sites which tell the whole story (no links on AP) including an excellent one I found this morning which is written by the builder's son. Sufficient to say, in 1972, a man who knew very little about motor sport built this car in a lock-up garage with the help of a few friends. It was a traditional DFV-powered, Hewland gearbox ensemble, nothing outstanding in its construction, but it must rank as the last truly homemade Formula 1 racing car.

The story is almost like a fairytale, except the car wasn't particularly successful (they borrowed a DFV from McLaren, and were frightened to take it over 9000rpm, when all the other teams would happily reach 11000rpm). Yet it WAS a success, because it was built, and raced, and a small band of friends had fun, and Colin Chapman himself came down the pitlane to have a look. It's a wonderful, heartwarming story, The car is presently being restored with a dummy engine, so sadly it won't race again.

As you may all have realised, I'm a sucker for the old ways in F1 - this car would not be allowed a look-in by the modern "owners" of the sport.  To think that Peter Connew could achieve what he did, pleases me to a very great extent.

[Ultra]

Dan Gurneys record as builder/driver will never fall.  It's far more immortal than any record held by Schumacher or Senna.

I'm really liking having made you Host.  Great article.

I'll always love the Lotus 72, Superbirds and Daytona's, the Granatelli Turbine car, the Lotus 79 and the Williams FW 14 come to mind...

[nicanary]

There's no doubting the talent of Schumacher and Senna, especially the latter whose abilities were sublime, but I never "warmed" to them as people. I am attracted to other facets of people and their cars. Dan Gurney was a great man, and I share your enthusiasm. I don't know if you're aware, but at Jim Clark's funeral, it's reputed that Clark's father approached Dan, thanked him for coming, and said quietly "you're the only one he was scared of" or words to that effect. Dan's heart and soul was in his racing and his cars, and he still loves to attend reunions and chew the fat. Pity he invented "champagne spraying" but I won't really hold that against him - he was a teetotaller after all.

Here's a photo which shows the garage where the Connew was built. It beggars belief really! Just consider the McLaren works today and the number of people they employ. These guys worked with their elbows touching the walls. And the car worked, even though the suspension gave problems - they deserve a film to be made about them.

[oko94]

I'm really liking having made you Host.  Great article.

I second that

This Connew was a failure but good looking nevertheless. On the same topic, the Andrea Moda F1 team was an utter disgrace but their car was damn fine looking with its all-black livery. Better looking that the whole 2016 grid !

A few years ago I spent a lot of time reading the now-defunct F1 Rejects website which was loaded with profiles of underdog teams and drivers, with lots of pictures and barely believable anecdotes. A very nice addition to the usual F1 books/reviews that usually focus only on the top teams.

[Ultra]

Seems like the info from F1 Rejects would be a good fit into this section of AutoPuzzles.

Does google still have any of it cached?

[oko94]

F1Rejects forum has been backed up and restored at GPRejects.

Lots of F1Rejects static content can be found at archive.is but I don't know if it's complete.

[nicanary]

F1Rejects forum has been backed up and restored at GPRejects.

Lots of F1Rejects static content can be found at archive.is but I don't know if it's complete.

Thanks for that information. It's an interesting site.

[Otto Puzzell]

Seems like the info from F1 Rejects would be a good fit into this section of AutoPuzzles.

Does google still have any of it cached?

Internet Wayback Machine

Driver Index:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131023110810/http://f1rejects.com/drivers/index.html

Team Index:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131023100813/http://f1rejects.com/teams/index.html

[nicanary]

Here's another car that always appealed to my senses. Goldenrod, built by Bob and Bill Summers, powered by 4 Chrysler Hemi motors, and a vehicle which recorded a 2-way average of 409mph in 1965, becoming the fastest wheel-driven car on the planet.

The whole thing is just awesome. Can you imagine driving at 400mph+ sitting so close to the ground? And what sort of vibration did 4 coupled engines create? Must have been like sitting on top of the San Andreas fault.

[nicanary]

For some reason I cannot actually expalin, this car epitomises for me what a real racing car should look like. You can keep your Alfa 159s, Ferrari 625s and Maserati 250Fs - this is what I like. In period of course, it was just an occasional winner because of the unreliability of the competition or because of its better fuel consumption. But just look at it - low build, huge exhausts, curvaceous tail. You know that if you wanted to, you could start it up and take it to the local shop to get some fresh milk.

[Carnut]

Perhaps you had a Dinky one when you were a little lad!

[nicanary]

Perhaps you had a Dinky one when you were a little lad!

I had the Ferrari, the HWM and the Cooper-Bristol, all of them completely out of scale compared to the Dinky saloon range. The trucks were also an odd scale, even the Supertoys.

Only Triang's Spot-On range kept a constant scale, which meant their trucks were huge. Not that that's got anything to do with my love of the lumbering old Talbot.

[Carnut]

Yes, Dinkies were a real mish-mash of scales.  It annoyed me intensely that you couldn't have the cars and buses in the same game otherwise they looked daft!
The 'Spot-On' name actually derives from the fact that all their models were going to be to exactly the same scale; so when they brought out a London Transport RT it was huge by comparison!
The trouble was the scale they chose didn't match anyone else's so if you played with them all together (as we did of course) then the Spot-Ons looked far too big in comparison.  Still to this day my collection includes virtually no Spot-Ons - simply because they didn't grab my attention back in the fifties as they just didn't look right.

[nicanary]

I was always a Dinky man through and through - my best friend Philip was a Corgi man and so our collections complemented each other.

I've got a display cabinet with about 50+ Dinky models from the 40s/50s/60s, most of them decent restorations rather than mint and boxed - crazy prices these days! For some reason I'm attracted to the Atlas range - it's a cheap way of obtaining mint and boxed cars. AFAIK they have the original dies which is why the models are exact copies.

[Carnut]

Yes, I've got a few of the Atlas repros too.
I'm not bothered about the mint and boxed nonsense - I just want them to look good in my cabinet!

[nicanary]

I would like to encourage members to tell me which racing cars, from any era, have made them say to themselves, "that's a car I like" for any reason at all. We've all seen on other websites the usual tedious "what's the best car of all time", or "what is the most beautiful car" type of thread - these can degenerate into the cultural level of a 15-year old girl on Facebook.

Racing fans often have a "secret" admiration of a particular car which maybe they have never shared with anyone. I would like to hear from you, preferably with an accompanying photo, and a brief explantion. If it's something as commonplace as a Lotus 49 or Porsche 917, then that's fine, but I want to know why you have selected it.

I'm going to start off with this, the Connew. If you don't know about the car, there are extensive sites which tell the whole story (no links on AP) including an excellent one I found this morning which is written by the builder's son. Sufficient to say, in 1972, a man who knew very little about motor sport built this car in a lock-up garage with the help of a few friends. It was a traditional DFV-powered, Hewland gearbox ensemble, nothing outstanding in its construction, but it must rank as the last truly homemade Formula 1 racing car.

The story is almost like a fairytale, except the car wasn't particularly successful (they borrowed a DFV from McLaren, and were frightened to take it over 9000rpm, when all the other teams would happily reach 11000rpm). Yet it WAS a success, because it was built, and raced, and a small band of friends had fun, and Colin Chapman himself came down the pitlane to have a look. It's a wonderful, heartwarming story, The car is presently being restored with a dummy engine, so sadly it won't race again.

As you may all have realised, I'm a sucker for the old ways in F1 - this car would not be allowed a look-in by the modern "owners" of the sport.  To think that Peter Connew could achieve what he did, pleases me to a very great extent.

Anyone visiting this weekend's Goodwood Festival of Speed can see this car refurbished by its enthusiastic crew. It is fitted with a borrowed DFV and Hewland gearbox, and sadly is a non-runner. Never mind that - look at it and be amazed.