12 replies to this topic

[TennisUK]

This week's Autosport magazine and website have a feature about the best 50 drivers who never got to race in F1 - the results are obviously rather arbitrary and will probably irritate some (NASCAR fans in particular, no doubt!) but I noticed this:

The future sportscar legend was set for the pinnacle of motorsport with a factory Volkswagen team in 1984.

Nielsen's hat-trick of European Super Vee titles in 1979 to '81 had persuaded VW to fund an F3 programme with British tuner Engine Developments and a factory team run by the big Dane.

Success in the 1982 German F3 series led to the decision to go F1 with a VR8 twin-turbo powerplant developed in conjunction with Engine Developments and a chassis built by March. Only it never happened.

"The project had been given the go-ahead, the engine was built and a VW Motorsport department was under construction in Hanover, and then all of a sudden it was stopped," recalls Nielsen. "It was all down to marketing reasons."

I have never heard of this before and a brief Google produced nothing - does anyone else slightly my senior remember this?

[arttidesco]

I worked in a non racing department for VW AG at Wolfsburg at the time with plenty of contacts in the marketing and sports departments and never heard a word of it. Those involved must have been sworn to secrecy on pain of death.

[alansart]

I worked in a non racing department for VW AG at Wolfsburg at the time with plenty of contacts in the marketing and sports departments and never heard a word of it. Those involved must have been sworn to secrecy on pain of death.

I used to go into R&D at VW Wolfsburg in 81 /82 on occasion. No sign of anything F1 - mainly twin engined Scirrocos and Jettas.

[arttidesco]

I used to go into R&D at VW Wolfsburg in 81 /82 on occasion. No sign of anything F1 - mainly twin engined Scirrocos and Jettas.

I also remember a tasty 3 door Passat bodied Quattro

[Allen Brown]

News to me, and that's a time when I made a note of every rumoured F1 car, even the Toutou.

[KWSN - DSM]

I actually have a vague memory of Danish media carrying some sort of story like this, not the March connection but definitely a VW F1 engine and 'Super John' (as he was known to us in Denmark) as the driver. My google skils do not allow me to find anything on the net corroborating this, possible my younger brother will agree / disagree with me, I will poke him and ask that he chime in.

[jcbc3]

Younger brother chiming in....

I once think I saw a crude cutaway drawing of a VW F1 engine in one of the German automagazines I bought then. But nothing more. I think this may not have been as far in the making as John N. makes out.

Edited by jcbc3, 28 July 2013 - 06:11.

[Jesper O. Hansen]

There were the odd rumours among the Danish press that John Nielsen had a chance of Formula 1 with Volkswagen around 1983/1984. With no major commercial supporter "Super John" had to rely on Volkswagen commitment to pave his way into F1. Born in 1956 he was getting a bit old by 1984 - having raced F3s since the mid 1970s - and when the VW F1-team went nowhere, Nielsen took the sportscar route with Sauber and TWR. Never heard about the March connection before, and interesting as the Volkswagen factory F3 cars were always Ralts.

Jesper

[alansart]

I also remember a tasty 3 door Passat bodied Quattro ;)

There were some drawings in the office I worked at in Wolfsburg of a Passat Quattro. I seem to remember the Audi Coupe & VW Passat shared the same floor pan so it wasn't that much of a job to create a VW version.

As for F1, VW never seemed to be on their radar.

Edited by alansart, 28 July 2013 - 13:25.

[Michael Ferner]

Wishful thinking on the part of Monsieur Nielsen, I'm sure!

Never heard about the March connection before, and interesting as the Volkswagen factory F3 cars were always Ralts.

Really? What about the Helmut Henzler March in 1979, or was that a Spiess engine? I really don't recall and am a bit too lazy to look it up...

[arttidesco]

There were some drawings in the office I worked at in Wolfsburg of a Passat Quattro. I seem to remember the Audi Coupe & VW Passat shared the same floor pan so it wasn't that much of a job to create a VW version.

Spot on but imagine blowing all those crusty Daimler drivers with their "eingebaute vorfahrt" into the weeds with a humble 200hp Passat

[Michael Ferner]

Wishful thinking on the part of Monsieur Nielsen, I'm sure!

On second thoughts, perhaps it was more of a Volkswagen ruse than anything else! I recall wondering at the time why it was that a driver of Nielsen's obvious talents kept treading water instead of moving on up - perhaps Volkswagen, aware of his potential and not wanting to lose him for their modest F3 programme, kept him in check by promising him some "golden future" with the company... but I would be VERY surpised if they did any actual planning for F1!! No way, actually!

[kayemod]

Spot on but imagine blowing all those crusty Daimler drivers with their "eingebaute vorfahrt" into the weeds with a humble 200hp Passat

From my experience of Autobahn driving, every German driver has their equivalent of Glass's Guide firmly imprinted in their brain, no-one moves over for a cheaper car, they just go faster. It's more deeply rooted than the UK class system, have you seen that book of cartoons that I've seen at service areas, Mercedes Führer?