21 replies to this topic

[Indian Chief]

This picture is of Carlos Reutemann testing a six wheeled Ferrari at Fiorano in 1977.
Does anyone know more about this? Why didn't Ferrari race it?

[This message has been edited by Don Capps (edited 12-14-1999).]

[Jonathan]

This topic came up in another forum on this board about two months ago (I am not sure which one). At the time I recalled that the Ferrari was running with two front wheels in tandum in place of the very large rears and speculated that this was being tested to see if it provided an aerodynamic advantage.

[Ruud de la Rosa]

Howmany 6 wheeled cars where ther 3????
Tyrell williams and ferrari? Any others?

[Todd]

I'm pretty sure that March was working on one with dual rear axles. The layout was called a 2-4-0 in the manner of steam locomotives.

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Forza Michael Schumacher,
Todd

[Racer.Demon]

Todd, here's the six-wheeled March 761 derivative you were looking for:



Oh, and on the Ferrari 6-wheeler picture we published at 8W last week: we also would like to know more about it!

Cheers,
Mattijs
[p][Edited by Racer.Demon on 09-07-2000]

[JimE]

Hi Indian
I first posted a question in November on this car in the Readers Coments, you posted to this I think?
Anyway I did not find a lot of info and yours is only the second picture I have seen of this car. The other and a picture of the Williams are below.
There were four six-wheel F1 cars the Tyrrel, March, Williams and Ferrari with only the Tyrrel having raced.

Scale model of 1977 experimental Ferrari with twin rear wheels.


Williams FW08 being driven on test by Rosberg in 1982, the car was never raced.

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JimE

[Megatron]

Brabham also built a prototype, but decided never to race it.

The Willaims model was rumored to be the car that actually got six wheels banned, as it was rumored to be extremely quick, so quick that Frank Williams tried to convice Alan Jones to come out of retirement to run it. When Jones said no, it is said that is when Williams started his "drivers are employees" gig.

I must admit I have never seen the Ferrari, and it is fun to see all the varitions of the concept.

[John B]

The other Williams of 1982, the FW08 with the flat nose, also had a six-wheel configuration. I saw a photo of it in action, driven by Jonathan Palmer at a recent Goodwood Festival hillclimb.

[Indian Chief]

I have a picture of Jonathan Palmer (I think) testing a six-wheeled Williams in Donnington in 1982.
I read that the traction it produced was totally unbelievable and the car would have blwn everybody else away, if wasn't banned.

[Ruud de la Rosa]

So Tyrell March Williams Ferrari Brabham
that's 5

[Todd]

Racer.Demon,

I don't know if this is related or not, but while I was trying to figure out some conflicting stories about Ferrari's chassis construction techniques, I found out that they built and tested a 312T_ with a deDion rear suspension about 1977. The 6-wheeler looks like it may have that rear suspension configuration in the picture. It may have been a way of adding resistance to suspension deflection caused by the outside wheels. I am visiting my automotive library(pile of ripped up Road & Tracks from the '70s and a few books) in VA next week. Maybe I can find something about it.

There were two different 2-4-0 Williams. One of the Williams ran at Goodwood recently. I think it may have set the FTD. I'll keep my eyes open for the details.

The March was doomed by having a transmission casing which was simplified during the build phase. Ribbing was left off the produced pieces that compromised its ridgidity. The two axles twisted the transmission and it failed quickly in testing.

Jody Schekter, the only living Tyrrell P34 driver, recently said that the concept was a flop. He thought that Tyrrell's whole frontal area reduction claim was bogus, as the huge rear wheels determined the frontal area. Fornt tire development(or lack there of) has been blamed for the P34's limited success, but maybe Jody's explanation is the reason that all the other teams that tried 6-wheelers went with 4 front tires mounted in the back. It seems amazing that Ken Tyrrell didn't realize that frontal area doesn't only apply to protrusions at the front of the car! I'll spare everybody my normal anti-Ken rant today.

------------------
Forza Michael Schumacher,
Todd

[Racer.Demon]

Todd: it still was a great car though, that P34, and Jody did win in it once. I think the lack of front-tyre development only hit Tyrrell hard in 1977 when Peterson was with them. He could do absolutely nothing with it. Most may think the thing looked funny (or even ridiculous) but as a kid I immediately fell in love with it!

On the Ferrari 312T "6"-wheeler: it cast my mind back to the Auto Union "Bergwagen" of the late thirties!



Shot at this year's Festival of Speed.

You may be right about the 312T's rear suspension lay-out but the picture is just too fuzzy. I'll ask my 8W colleague Leif Snellman (who first discovered this picture) to try and make a better scan!

Strange thing: weren't there any laws on maximum dimensions? The car looks about two front tyres too wide at the back! ;-)

On the two Williamses: you're right, the picture supplied by JimE is in fact not a FW08 but a FW07 derivative. I'd seen this picture before but the FW08 6-wheeler driven by Palmer at the Festival of Speed is unknown to me. I mean, I know it was there, but I wasn't at Goodwood at the time and I haven't seen any pictures of it. And yes, it did set FTD, which, interestingly, wasn't beaten by Nick Heidfeld's thundering Mc-Merc MP4/13 in 1998! But then it rained that year... So for this year's event JP was still holding the hill record! (Before Nick took five seconds off it on a dry hill.)

With the aforementioned unbelievable traction I guess that FW08 was born for hillclimbs...

Cheers,
Mattijs
[p][Edited by Racer.Demon on 09-07-2000]

[PDA]

Todd - If you read gardner's reasoning for mini front wheels, you will see that he was not claiming a reducion of frontal area. What he was trying to achieve was a reduction in drag due to the smaller front wheels having less area than the typical front wheels of the day. the overall drag would be reduced by better initial penetration. He reasoned that by the time the flow reached the rear wheels, it was so disturbed as to be comparitively irrelevant. It seemed to work for a while, until Goodyear stopped developing the tyres for it (not surprising really when you consider how many of the other teams they supplied).

[Zagato_Olaf]

Hello members,

Is there someone who knows the chassisnumber of the six wheel Ferrari tested at Fiorano in 1977?
Thank you for the info!

Ciao, Olaf

[Arjan de Roos]

Ferrari tested the sixwheeler on March 13th (and other days). That was one week after the SAF GP where they fielded 027, 029 and 030. The same cars that were present in Long Beach for the USA-East GP (April 3rd). Not likely Ferrari converted one of those race cars to the 6 wheel set up.
031 was the second and last T2 built in 1977 and appeared only in July at the French GP. Unlikely Ferrari used a new car for these tests.
Remain 026 and 028 as those have been converted from 1976 to 1977 specs (028 was the car that crashed at the Ring in 76 but on that number a new chassis was built).

026 is the most likely as it was (with 031) the T2 that was sold of to a collector first.

[mcwidow70]

My favorite italian craft model maker has just proposed me to buy a build up 1/43 model of the same car.

[Duc-Man]

That Ferrari was not really a six-wheeler like the others. It just had four wheels on one axle. Like Auto Union had it for the hill-climb car around 40 years earlier...:

Edited by Duc-Man, 08 December 2009 - 11:12.

[Bruno]

13 march, drivers???
Dario Benuzzi


or Niki Lauda,


Carlos Reutemann???

[rallen]

The Willaims model was rumored to be the car that actually got six wheels banned, as it was rumored to be extremely quick, so quick that Frank Williams tried to convice Alan Jones to come out of retirement to run it. When Jones said no, it is said that is when Williams started his "drivers are employees" gig.

So what was the official reason 6 wheelers were banned? why?

[Henri Greuter]

So what was the official reason 6 wheelers were banned? why?

It was in the hight of the FISA/FOCA war between Ecclestone and Balestre.

It was envisioned to be something of an trade off to ban more than 4 wheels to get something in return to kill off the turbocharged engines . Or at least get something else for it in return to keep the British Cosworth Gang happy and competitive. If everything went as planned, since only Williams would suffer from it (and they could join the other with a regular fourwheel car) but in return would get rid of both Ferrari and Renault as serious opposition it was seen as a rather good trade by/for the British Cosworth Gang.

Another rumor I have heard was that the use of the 6 wheeler was pretty much academic since for the qualifying sessions each car was only alloted 8 tires, no two sets of tires but 8 wheels. The Williams needed 12....

Henri

[rallen]

It was in the hight of the FISA/FOCA war between Ecclestone and Balestre.

It was envisioned to be something of an trade off to ban more than 4 wheels to get something in return to kill off the turbocharged engines . Or at least get something else for it in return to keep the British Cosworth Gang happy and competitive. If everything went as planned, since only Williams would suffer from it (and they could join the other with a regular fourwheel car) but in return would get rid of both Ferrari and Renault as serious opposition it was seen as a rather good trade by/for the British Cosworth Gang.

Another rumor I have heard was that the use of the 6 wheeler was pretty much academic since for the qualifying sessions each car was only alloted 8 tires, no two sets of tires but 8 wheels. The Williams needed 12....

Henri

Thanks Henri, so interesting, that is what killed off the turbos, I thought it was done on grounds of saftey - they were going too fast for drivers to properly control them (I think I heard G Berger say that one point) still turbos lasted until the end of 1988, pity they wouldnt have let the 6 wheelers last until then.

As an aside, the Tyrrell P34 looked a very safe car!

[Henri Greuter]

Thanks Henri, so interesting, that is what killed off the turbos, I thought it was done on grounds of saftey - they were going too fast for drivers to properly control them (I think I heard G Berger say that one point) still turbos lasted until the end of 1988, pity they wouldnt have let the 6 wheelers last until then.

As an aside, the Tyrrell P34 looked a very safe car!

Well, it didn't work that well in 1982 yet, the turbos remained legal after all and were hardly handicapped as what FOCA wanted to happen.
So then they came up with running underweight with watercooled brakes...
watercooled brakes that were ran stonedry because the tanks for that were only topped off after the race....




Henri