20 replies to this topic

[Mallory Dan]

I thought it'd be a good idea to set this one off on its own thread, doesn't really sit too well with 'Welsh Racing Drivers' !!

I remember some of the cars mentioned on there, the Roni, Vision, Magnum, does the Sparton come in here too? JIm Yardley made an F3 Beagle too at this time as I recall. Agree with Ghinzy re the Finnish Magnum men, very slow indeed, though that countries reputation took a big upward step when Lehto came along. And on the subject of slow Magnum pilots, anyone recall Fulton Haight Junior, very large chap I believe.

Magnum also made, I think, a one-off Atlantic for the States, Colin Tuckey had it I think. And wasn't Russell Spence involved with the team in its early days, bit of a character him. Or perhaps it was Dave Coyne.

Finally, for now, David, yes my little bro' was an F3 spanner at that time, initially for Price in France, with Andrew Ridgley amongst others driving. He, my bro' not George's mate, then went to Pegasus, then to Donington as Circuit Manager or some such title.

[petefenelon]

Summarising what we had on the 'Welsh Racing Drivers' thread plus some other bits that came ot mind... (and ignoring Reynard/Ralt/Dallara!)

Magnum and Vision - two very ambitious F3 projects, both of whose later cars were designed with F3000 in mind. The first Magnum had been an abandoned Theodore.

Roni - early-80s F3 by Nick Wasilyiw and Rob Gustafson ex of March, it started life as the Cygnus I think; they later became an F3000 team.

I think the Sparton was a hack of their FF2000 chassis circa '82-3 and didn't Senna do a very early F3 test in one? There's a "what might've been"!

Anson - never did much in the UK, but the SA4 was quite successful in the European and German series (and as an FSV). Keith Fine drove the last in the line, a weird thing with very high sidepods. I'm sure Twinny has some stories of Tommy Byrne's tenure in the the SA4...

Argo kept popping up occasionally with terrible cars - JM10 and JM11 never really worked (didn't seem to get the hang of ground effect; Thierry Tassin had been good in an earlier conventional Argo) and there was a long gap until another car (JM18) appeared in France in about 1990.

Of course in France there was Martini, until they rather faded away.

Although they never raced in Britain I thought Bertram Schaefer's BSRs looked great - good enough to win at least one race with Ellen Lohr weren't they? - Very neat little cars. When the supposedly-Russian "Tark Estonia" turned up a year or so after the BSR there was a bit of a family resemblance, they'd both been designed by the same ex-Zakspeed guy.

And remember the odd Bertas that used to appear in Germany too? Looked very much like contemporary Ralts to me....

My alltime favourite F3 car was a little out of this period - the absolutely tiny Bowman BC1 from about 1991 which really did look years ahead of its time.... later Bowman cars looked more and more conventional.

Can't think of too many interesting F3 engines of that period, apart from the Reynard-Saab adventure, it was all VW/Opel/Toyota with the odd Alfa for variety, until the ultra-expensive Mugen came in in the early 90s. I vaguely recall an unsuccessful Swindon Ford-based F3 engine but I think that was a few years later, 92-3 or so.

[fausto]

on the subject of '80s F.3 cars Italy offered something different too: do you remember Alba and Arno?

[2F-001]

Speaking of Anson... we (Lotus Seven Club, Surrey chapter) have an informal evening of Qs and As with Gary Anderson tonight.

[ghinzani]

I've been in contact with Jim Yardley of Beagle fame - hes still sprinting basically the same car in sprints around the country - its now got a 1600 Honda mill in it. I'll see if I can fidn the pics. Didnt we have a seperate thread on this a while back? The Beagle I mean.

I recall Fulton, was'nt he a student over here? He was a big lad, could have been a contender. For the WWF king of the ring title Shame they never got Euser back in the car for 86, or got Coyne in for a full year with the 88.

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by Mallory Dan
Magnum also made, I think, a one-off Atlantic for the States, Colin Tuckey had it I think. And wasn't Russell Spence involved with the team in its early days, bit of a character him. Or perhaps it was Dave Coyne.

Finally, for now, David, yes my little bro' was an F3 spanner at that time, initially for Price in France, with Andrew Ridgley amongst others driving. He, my bro' not George's mate, then went to Pegasus, then to Donington as Circuit Manager or some such title.

Spence drove I think the 81 car, realised he wasnt ready for F3 and went back to FF2000 via the Donington series then the Euro/German series IIRC. Coyne as stated earlier drove the 883 in a one of ride, I think the same race the Vision in revised form debuted - maybe at Donington. Perry Mcarthy tried a Magnum tuned VW engine in the back of his Reynard in 87, it went fairly quickly for a short while I believe but that was THE year of the engines tho - if you didnt have a spiess then you may as well have speissed off !!

So he worked with Ridgely, that was 86 wasnt it? Remember seeing him stuff it at Brands, possibly the Superprix, he was very poor. As a driver. Great singer tho. Haunting.
And then your brother went to work for Pegasus... would you care to comment? Actually I only heard my stories about Pegasus via Alistar Lyalls GRAB team boys so they may be wide of the mark and hearsay. But very quick in pre-season wasnt young Graham. Then he stuffed the car and I think Dads jumper making business got tired of paying. He came and tried a Goode Sierra at one point I recall too. Cant remember if he was any good tho.

[RTH]

Thay Cygnus/Roni car was most attractive looking, anyone fish out a photo ......wonder where it is now ?

[Cirrus]

I suppose this means I'm going to have to keep my promise to Dan, and dig out some pictures of Belgium's finest - the Ring. It certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests, though.

[Cirrus]

Well - here we go.

This is the car under construction. It was quite well made. Apparently there was some design input from Dallara.



Unusually, it used an FT200 gearbox. It looks like a pretty standard ground effects car from that era, but the secret weapon was surface cooling (for reduced drag)



.....contained within those massive sidepods



To my eye, there is a touch of Lotus 81 about it (and no, I haven't gone to Specsavers)



Sadly, my F3 career with the Ring lasted but half a lap of Zolder

[Teapot]

Originally posted by RTH

That Cygnus/Roni car was most attractive looking, anyone fish out a photo ......wonder where it is now ?

Have a look at THIS great site by Gerald Swan (Search under "Manufacturer" for both Cygnus and Roni)

[Mallory Dan]

Alan, that Ring looks a bit like a Kart to me, the last pic anyway. I wonder whatever happened to it? Perhaps you could ahve turned it into an F4, and really taken on the Deltas. Did the Ring designers/builders do anything after it, or did you put them off another car !

[RTH]

Originally posted by Teapot


Have a look at THIS great site by Gerald Swan (Search under "Manufacturer" for both Cygnus and Roni)

What a great F3 site thank you for that.

[ian senior]

I have to agree. I first saw it when I was trawling through Gerald Swan's F3 site (SUPERB!!!!) and it looked to me exactly how a modern F3 car should look - tiny, neat and gorgeous. In a way, it's a 90s take on a 1-litre F3 car. And then someone came along with the idea of a high nose for racing cars, and that was the end of that, aesthetics-wise...

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by ian senior


I have to agree. I first saw it when I was trawling through Gerald Swan's F3 site (SUPERB!!!!) and it looked to me exactly how a modern F3 car should look - tiny, neat and gorgeous. In a way, it's a 90s take on a 1-litre F3 car. And then someone came along with the idea of a high nose for racing cars, and that was the end of that, aesthetics-wise...

That F3 history site is superb - goes some way beyond the Hodges A-Z of Formula Racing Cars book in illustrating some of the obscurities.

Bowman were a superb team in the late 80s and at the time it seemed like a logical step for them to go off and build their own car - but it seems that ultra-high-tech F3 cars don't often work well though - think of the Ralt RT37 which was just too sophisticated for teams to get a proper handle on. Mind you that tub lives on as the Gould-Ralt in hillclimbing...;)

(Thinks - imagine a Bowman with a V8 in the back of it on the hills!)

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by 2F-001
Speaking of Anson... we (Lotus Seven Club, Surrey chapter) have an informal evening of Qs and As with Gary Anderson tonight.

I'd be interested in hearing any good stories from this!

[2F-001]

re: Gary Anderson,
Sure thing Pete -
I'm a bit poorly at the mo' and so behind with work (among other things I edit, design and produce the L7C magazine and I'm in panic mode at the moment) but I will get around to it. (Not sure how much of it he intended to be broadcast far and wide though!1).

A few of us had a meal wth him beforehand and then made a late evening of it afterwards, so he was happily chatting with us for five hours or more! A thoroughly nice guy, with seemingly no "side" or mailce or pretension about him at all. Using his own assessment procedure... "someone you'd like to sit down and have a drink with" and very generous of his time - he's still pretty busy.

Discussion ranged far and wide, but just one small point for now - I'd heard it said that some current F1 cars ran as much as 80kgs of ballast which seemed a little amazing to me - but apparent that is fairly common and he understands that last year's Ferrari needed as much as 105kg at some points of the season.
Even using some tungsten alloy like Densamet, that's gonna be a volume somewhere close (in my estimation) to two UK telephone directories... that's a heck of a lot, isn't it, to fit into a tightly packaged single-seater?

[petefenelon]

Thanks for the report - Gary Anderson always struck me as the last of the 'old school' F1 designers, people who'd come up from being a mechanic and were primarily chassis designers rather than CFD wonks with aerospace PhDs! He's been responsible for some very attractive and competitive cars in his time, although I've never quite understood his on/off/on/off/on/off relationship with Jordan!

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by petefenelon
although I've never quite understood his on/off/on/off/on/off relationship with Jordan!

Guinness? As in he kept agreeing to go back when he was pissed?

[fausto]

As a Group C fan I was quite surprised by the Arundel C200, tipycal Anderson product, very nice car, strong debut although unfinished, pity they didn't have the resources to continue....

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by fausto
As a Group C fan I was quite surprised by the Arundel C200, tipycal Anderson product, very nice car, strong debut although unfinished, pity they didn't have the resources to continue....

Nice looking little piece of kit, that - very clean lines, and very well-proportioned unlike a lot of C2s.

Another car that resurfaced under another name (echoes of the Argo/Royale thread elsewhere!) after disappearing for a couple of years -- born '84, it resurfaced in '86 as the Bardon DB2 (Don being Robin Donovan, I think - can't remember who Bar was?)

Edit - John Bartlett!

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by petefenelon


Nice looking little piece of kit, that - very clean lines, and very well-proportioned unlike a lot of C2s.

Another car that resurfaced under another name (echoes of the Argo/Royale thread elsewhere!) after disappearing for a couple of years -- born '84, it resurfaced in '86 as the Bardon DB2 (Don being Robin Donovan, I think - can't remember who Bar was?)

Edit - John Bartlett!

Anyone recall the cellulite on those Goodmans grid girls who accompanied the Bardon to Le Mans? and their awful grey towelling shorts. They made the Hawaiin Tropic mutts look good. IMHO