Keep up the updates with your thoughts!
OK, you want it, you get it
Let´s focus on the Tyrrell 024 for now and try to separate the facts from the assumptions.
Facts:
- Tyrrell raced five chassis of the 024 type in 1996, Katayama used chassis 01 and 05 while Salo used the chassis 02, 03 & 04
- Chassis 01 was last used at the GP Canada where Katayama had a crash (he spun into the gravel bed, no heavy impact)
- Chassis 01 never reappeared at a GP weekend, neither as a race car nor a spare.
- The various chassis are a little different, the most obvious is the cockpit frame. Chassis 01, 02 & 03 have a thin frame while 04 & 05 have a thicker one.
- At the second Stoddart auction in 2005 there were three 024 up for sale, according to the auction list chassis 02, 04 & 06
- We have photographic proof of three cars prepared/stored for that auction, one presented in red/white, one in blue/white, one in PIAA livery with 025 bodywork. (Question: were there any 025 on auction at the second Stoddart auction? If so then the PIAA car might as well been offered as an 025, if not then despite it´s looks it was offered as an 024) Edit: According to matherto Tyrrell 025-02, 04 & 06 were offered at the second auction in 2005. So again another "mystery" chassis as only five 025 were built by Tyrrell.
- Tyrrell was short on money in 1996. According to former team members Tyrrell never built show cars, only real race cars, so very unlikely they built a sixth chassis with no intention to use it.
- Currently there are two Tyrrell cars known with thin cockpit frame, the Japanese Rocky car and my car.
Assumptions:
- chassis 024-01 was taken to create a show car with a cut out left side (the PIAA car at the auction) probably misnumbered as chassis 06
- there was a 024 mock up somewhere in the Tyrrell factory used as a template for all sorts of bodywork/suspension fitment (these chassis are normally not built to race spec. I once owned such a mock-up chassis of the Brabham BT60). This mock-up was used to built the "cut-out-monocoque car and was numbered chassis 06
- Stoddart built some 024 cars at his premises in Ledbury after he aquired all the Tyrrell stuff (he for sure built the two-seaters based on the Tyrrell 026 and raced some of the Tyrrell 025 at BOSS/historic meetings by himself). But on the other hand why should he do so. It would make some sense to build 025 monocoques as spares for his own race used cars but building additional 024 monocoques??? Not really.
Edited by funformula, 17 December 2023 - 11:21.