The Ferrari 640 had the first semi auto gearbox in F1 but it gained a bad reputation for poor reliability. In reality the gearbox itself was fine but Ferrari ran a 4 bearing crank on their engine that whipped at high revs and threw off the belt that charged the battery. As the system was largely electrical that shut the gear selector down and the retirement was listed as gearbox failure.
Chapman had a history of under-speccing his cars design (allegedly trying to get through scruitineering with silver painted cardboard firewalls) when the mechanic making the suspension of the new Lotus 49 got the spec sheets he thought the steel was too light so doubled it in thickness. The car went out to test and came back rapidly to the pits with suspension folded up like tinfoil....
The 'ultra sophisticated' active suspension on the Williams FW14b had it's software written by one man in about a week...
The following is from distant memory (and Tyrrel autobigraphy) so may not all be correct.
Tyrrell were quite an innovative team, amongst the many things they introduced, or tried and failed were:
First team to deck out their pitcrew in team colours after gaining ELF sponsorship.
First team to race an airbox.
First (and only?) six wheeler F1 car.
First team to use pneumatic airguns to remove wheels.
First team to race a proper, fully raised nose.
First team to run aerodynamic fairing over (then) steel wishbones, which later became todays aero-profiled carbon wishbones.
Ran experimental 3 spoke alloys but they failed at Interlagos.
Tried to run front tyres on the rear wheels at Monza to reduce drag (Goodyear stopped that one....)
[edit] First team to run x-wings.
That's on top of less innovative but still uncommon things like monopost front wing, hydraulic interlinked suspension, designing a car around 3rd gear corners because they were the most common corner type on the calender.
As a trivial addition, when Tyrrell unveiled their six wheeler to the press they hired a bus to transport the journos to the track to see the car, as a clue they used a 6 wheeler bus with 4 front steering wheels, just like the car.
Edited by Boing 2, 26 April 2015 - 11:42.