F1 Cars that never raced in world championship & post-1945 GP rarities

In January 1995, Autosprint, the Italian magazine, published an interview with Enrique on project progress, I think the journalist was invited to Hawtal Whiting because the photos are credited to him.

Enrique says they want an experienced driver for development and a japanese driver which does not match Brack and de Ferran profile, interesting!

when the WEC race ends I can post an English translation of the interview.

dr. tiroch wrote:In January 1995, Autosprint, the Italian magazine, published an interview with Enrique on project progress, I think the journalist was invited to Hawtal Whiting because the photos are credited to him.

Enrique says they want an experienced driver for development and a japanese driver which does not match Brack and de Ferran profile, interesting!

when the WEC race ends I can post an English translation of the interview.

Would be incredible!
I can repost it perhaps on unracedf1 as a interview !

at the end of 1993, Tetsu Ikuzawa contacted Scalabroni shortly after contacting Peter Windsor, who suggested that the former driver should think of the difficulties in building a structure from scratch.
Ikuzawa, after a week, told Windsor and Scalabroni that he had chosen to start the team using the structures of Hawtal Whiting,
the article suggests that the Basildon company could offer technology that only the best teams possessed at the time.

with Ikuzawa economic support, Scalabroni in the first 6 months chose the working team and built the technical and logistics structure of the team at Basildon

In 1994, the team built the wind tunnel model, using HW CAD and Cray system (6 million operations per second), the printer seen in the photo could produce 1: 1 scale designs

in 1994, from July, they tested the 1:40 model at the Imperial College wind tunnel for 300 hours, in 1995 they wanted to add as many hours of wind tunnel

with the change of regulation proposed for 1995 the team had to postpone the debut in 1996, hoping to complete the first car in the spring, and then start testing

the 1:1 scale maquette was used to try the comfort of the cockpit with the help also of John Watson

the frame had to be realized by Internacional De Composites SA, a Spanish factory based in Toledo, which fabricated elements of the A310 Airbus.

now the most interesting part ...

the car had to be equipped with a six-speed vertical gearbox!
this layout had to improve the CoG, increase accessibility, gear ratios could have been changed from a door to the top of the box without disassembling anything
the gearbox was to have a wedge shape like a keel of a ship, allowing better use of the exhausts blown into the diffuser

the suspensions had to have a hydraulic system that Scalabroni did not want to reveal in the details, vaguely speaking of three elements in line, and immediate reactions


in the interview Scalabroni says the car has the nose cone similar to that of Benetton, but says it is more like that of the Peugeot F1

the team is small, the target is to get more or less to twenty engineers and sixty employees in total

the first funds came from Tetsu Ikuzawa, then Windsor had to build the pool of sponsors, but Enrique says they have the right resources and great potential

for drivers, a Japanese for obvious reasons and a man of experience


I hope I have translated in a decent way

how nice it would be to see a sketch of the gearbox design!

Some recent articles i published !

Shannon (Known of Forti sponsoring)
https://www.unracedf1.com/shannon-racing-and-f1/

Untold Pacific Story
https://www.unracedf1.com/the-untold-story-pacific-grand-prix/

Lotus B Team
https://www.unracedf1.com/lotus-b-team/

Van Hool F1 Car
https://www.unracedf1.com/van-hool-f1-car/

Thabks for all these links. The Lotus B Team article was new for me.

I do not agree with your article on the Van Hool. I think you should investigate more on it. Press articles from the time advertised it as an F1. It was indeed an F1 project as shown in the high central Airbox, obviously meant for a V8 engine. The only F2 that had high central airboxes were powered by V6 2l engines, none of which was ever scheduled for the F2 VHM which was powered by a straight 4cyl. Many cars could be used as F1, F2 or even F5000, depending on engine you screwed at the back. Marches are a great exemple of this, others exist.

Wookey wrote:Thabks for all these links. The Lotus B Team article was new for me.

I do not agree with your article on the Van Hool. I think you should investigate more on it. Press articles from the time advertised it as an F1. It was indeed an F1 project as shown in the high central Airbox, obviously meant for a V8 engine. The only F2 that had high central airboxes were powered by V6 2l engines, none of which was ever scheduled for the F2 VHM which was powered by a straight 4cyl. Many cars could be used as F1, F2 or even F5000, depending on engine you screwed at the back. Marches are a great exemple of this, others exist.

i was in the understanding too that the Van Hool was an F1 car. But i had some contact with people who showed me it really was intended to enter the F2, they did one or two races before the car was withdraw. Though it could be easily a f1 car.

Did you ask them why it was shown with a high Airbox? What was the engine intended to use this?

Wookey wrote:Did you ask them why it was shown with a high Airbox? What was the engine intended to use this?

No i havent as it was common that they used also these type of airboxes in the F2 back then.
Also the fact the car drove F2 races sounds legit it was intentded for F2.

My dear friend, first I insist that I must thank you for the great research and dedication you spend on a topic that I'm very interested in.
Then, from a very old, nearly retired journalist, I hope you will accept this advice, as you are a young, promising and talented blogger : always separate neatly the facts from your personal opinion. In this case, as in some others, you might be true. Or not. It is not very important as long as you clearly indicate what you KNOW, and what you THINK.
Please forgive me, I tell you this in good part and with much respect to your  work. Just hear it as an advise from old man, think about it, and then do what you believe good.
Anyway keep up the good work, your site grows tremendously interesting.

Wookey wrote:My dear friend, first I insist that I must thank you for the great research and dedication you spend on a topic that I'm very interested in.
Then, from a very old, nearly retired journalist, I hope you will accept this advice, as you are a young, promising and talented blogger : always separate neatly the facts from your personal opinion. In this case, as in some others, you might be true. Or not. It is not very important as long as you clearly indicate what you KNOW, and what you THINK.
Please forgive me, I tell you this in good part and with much respect to your  work. Just hear it as an advise from old man, think about it, and then do what you believe good.
Anyway keep up the good work, your site grows tremendously interesting.

Haha im not angry or anything, and i appreciate your dedication and your tips !
I know i still have a lot to learn, and i actually will go back to school next year for a study journalism so it will be easier to do the research and write the articles.
All for the passion UnracedF1, and the articles i publish the more joy i receive from it. Once again thanks for the tips !