Reject F1 Cars

[S951]

Forti FG95

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/3 ... 95_F1.html

Pacific PR01

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/2 ... _SOLD.html

and my favourite complete Simtek F1 Team S951s

http://www.carandclassic.com/car/C38973/

Coloni FC188

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C134298/

EuroBrun 189/190

http://www.classiccarsforsale.co.uk/cla ... arno/93985
http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/2 ... 35_V8.html

Not for sale but few more pics and bit of info on the Lambo Modena 291

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=64213

[AndreaModa]

Forti FG95

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/3 ... 95_F1.html

Man that livery looks soo good it's untrue! I remember seeing a picture of it in a 1996 review magazine (wish I still had it ) and the Forti had the Shannon colours, even though it was a small picture, it looked brilliant. Great to see it up close, would be even better to have the cash for it!

[Phoenix]

Forti FG95

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/3 ... 95_F1.html

Man that livery looks soo good it's untrue! I remember seeing a picture of it in a 1996 review magazine (wish I still had it ) and the Forti had the Shannon colours, even though it was a small picture, it looked brilliant. Great to see it up close, would be even better to have the cash for it!

When you are 40, instead of buying a BMW 530d, buy it

[AndreaModa]

Forti FG95

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/3 ... 95_F1.html

Man that livery looks soo good it's untrue! I remember seeing a picture of it in a 1996 review magazine (wish I still had it ) and the Forti had the Shannon colours, even though it was a small picture, it looked brilliant. Great to see it up close, would be even better to have the cash for it!

When you are 40, instead of buying a BMW 530d, buy it

I'll be waiting another 20 years then! Better get saving

[S951]

what would you guys class as reject cars? apart from the ones on the site?

I know the Forti FG03 is being used in the uk as part of a F1 experience day

[dr-baker]

what would you guys class as reject cars? apart from the ones on the site?

I know the Forti FG03 is being used in the uk as part of a F1 experience day

The definition of a reject car/team?

All a former Formula One team needs to have done to get a page on this site is ...
• to have attempted to qualify at at least 2 Grands Prix and
• to have scored 6 points or fewer
How hard can that be? Very!

http://www.f1rejects.com/teams/index.html

[Aerospeed]

I remember a car that had two fuel tanks... and another which had two pieces saudered together!

[Phoenix]

Has someone realized some excerpts of the Euro Brun ER189 info are taken straight out of the F1 Rejects profile of the team, by the way?

[FullMetalJack]

Has someone realized some excerpts of the Euro Brun ER189 info are taken straight out of the F1 Rejects profile of the team, by the way?

I wish they'd come back with their Jagermeister sponsorship and take over Toro Rosso, keep the Red Bull sponsorship and rename it Team Jagerbomb.

[Barbazza]

I'm particularly entertained by the 'Bye Deborah' logo on the side of the Forti's nose! Presumably not part of the original livery...

I'm pretty sure that we've seen at least one of the Eurobruns posted on the forum as being for sale before as I remember someone commenting then about the steal from the profile and the alleged victory of the Mansell Judd engine (hmmm...)
Maybe it changes hands regularly? Can't think why!!!

[SuperAguri]

Has someone realized some excerpts of the Euro Brun ER189 info are taken straight out of the F1 Rejects profile of the team, by the way?

With the fact they add "Thanks to http://www.f1rejects.com/teams/eurobrun/profile.html for the story of the Eurobrun."

The seller is http://www.specialistcarsltd.co.uk/item/201/catid/13

If I won the lottery then I would be after buying a Minardi or a BMS Scuderia Italia or even a Larousse

[Jim Clark Forever]

Having been a freeloader chuckling at this website for a long time. I have finally been moved to stick my oar in by this thread - reject cars and teams were not a ninties phenomenon - having been a close observer of FI for not far short of half a century in my view if one wants to look for seriously reject cars one needs to go back much further, for starters what about:

Any car made by a team called ATS, whether it be the mad Italian one or the German one with the eccentric boss (once seen in the pits jumping up and down on a front wing that he had taken a dislike to).

The Bellasi

The horrifying Honda RA302

Maki F-101

Any of the RAM cars

The Tecno

Unfortunately I fear that other even more deserving reject cars like the Bugatti Type 251 (before my time I hasten to add) and the infamous McGuire fail to meet the 2 GP criteria. No perhaps nothing was worse than the Honda RA302 - what a pity Jo Schlesser had to die for the sake of Honda's pride.

[Phoenix]

Has someone realized some excerpts of the Euro Brun ER189 info are taken straight out of the F1 Rejects profile of the team, by the way?

With the fact they add "Thanks to http://www.f1rejects.com/teams/eurobrun/profile.html for the story of the Eurobrun."

Well I didn't see that. My memory can be awesome at times

Having been a freeloader chuckling at this website for a long time. I have finally been moved to stick my oar in by this thread - reject cars and teams were not a ninties phenomenon - having been a close observer of FI for not far short of half a century in my view if one wants to look for seriously reject cars one needs to go back much further, for starters what about:

Any car made by a team called ATS, whether it be the mad Italian one or the German one with the eccentric boss (once seen in the pits jumping up and down on a front wing that he had taken a dislike to).

The Bellasi

The horrifying Honda RA302

Maki F-101

Any of the RAM cars

The Tecno

Unfortunately I fear that other even more deserving reject cars like the Bugatti Type 251 (before my time I hasten to add) and the infamous McGuire fail to meet the 2 GP criteria. No perhaps nothing was worse than the Honda RA302 - what a pity Jo Schlesser had to die for the sake of Honda's pride.

You've been following F1 for 50 years? That's awesome
Certainly building a car with a magnesium body in 1968 wasn't wise at all. John Surtees, thankfully, was wise and refused to drive it. Maybe we could add the Connew (built by a single man ), any BRM from 1975 to 1977, or some who didn't even make it but looked rejectful like the Dywas or the Berta.

[Jim Clark Forever]

You've been following F1 for 50 years? That's awesome
Certainly building a car with a magnesium body in 1968 wasn't wise at all. John Surtees, thankfully, was wise and refused to drive it. Maybe we could add the Connew (built by a single man ), any BRM from 1975 to 1977....

Thanks, not quite 50 years - my earliest and somewhat hazy memories stretch back to '63, when I was five. Think that the Connew is a little unfair - as I recall it did not even have a budget - the monocoque was as you say knocked up in a garage by one guy, but I think that just about all of the running gear was begged and borrowed from various parts of the motor racing community including a very tired old Cosworth that they could not afford to blow up. It was a pretty neat little car that, given the contsraints that it was operating under, I think went quite respectably. I consider that teams like the original ATS and the Honda RA302 are much more rejectful as they had big budgets by the standards of the day and still screwed it up... But as you say there are a number of truly terrible cars that one could identify from the 70's, but I am less inclined to be critical of efforts with bags of enthusiasm but a budget that would not even keep a team of today in paper cups. This makes me tend to go a bit easy on teams like Osella for example, even though their turbo cars needed a callendar to time their laps.

Yup would agree that just about any BRM outside the 1959-65 period is a potential grand champion reject car - V16 Mk1 anybody?

[mario]

You've been following F1 for 50 years? That's awesome
Certainly building a car with a magnesium body in 1968 wasn't wise at all. John Surtees, thankfully, was wise and refused to drive it. Maybe we could add the Connew (built by a single man ), any BRM from 1975 to 1977....

Thanks, not quite 50 years - my earliest and somewhat hazy memories stretch back to '63, when I was five. Think that the Connew is a little unfair - as I recall it did not even have a budget - the monocoque was as you say knocked up in a garage by one guy, but I think that just about all of the running gear was begged and borrowed from various parts of the motor racing community including a very tired old Cosworth that they could not afford to blow up. It was a pretty neat little car that, given the contsraints that it was operating under, I think went quite respectably. I consider that teams like the original ATS and the Honda RA302 are much more rejectful as they had big budgets by the standards of the day and still screwed it up... But as you say there are a number of truly terrible cars that one could identify from the 70's, but I am less inclined to be critical of efforts with bags of enthusiasm but a budget that would not even keep a team of today in paper cups. This makes me tend to go a bit easy on teams like Osella for example, even though their turbo cars needed a callendar to time their laps.

Yup would agree that just about any BRM outside the 1959-65 period is a potential grand champion reject car - V16 Mk1 anybody?

Technically, the latter ATS team, under the directorship of Schmidt, is ineligible - between 1977 and 1984, they scored 8 points, with three 5th places and two 6th's. Berger did also finish in 6th place in the 1984 Italian GP, but because ATS had not officially entered Berger at the start of the year, his car was not eligible for points. And in some ways, despite the problems within the team, ATS were inventive - they were one of the very first teams to experiment with a carbon fibre chassis, with the 1983 D6.

I do agree, though, that the 1960's Honda cars were, on the whole, underwhelming, and the cars were pretty lethal at times (although, to be fair to them, most of the cars at the time were little better).
in fact, Honda's record in Formula 1 has been fairly good as an engine supplier - the V6 turbo engines for Williams and Mclaren, and the V12 engines for Mclaren in the normally aspirated era - but prone to cutting their losses with unseemly haste (such as dumping Mclaren in the 1990's), and as a manufacturer their record is distinctly patchy. It probably is no coincidence that their greatest success occurred when partnering with experienced technical parters who guided their development - Lola Cars in the 1960's, and Prodrive during the 2004 season.

Now, I wonder if the true golden era of the Reject was during the 1970's, thinking about it. After all, the Ford Cosworth DFV was both competitive and extremely cheap (even by modern standards, once inflation adjusted, a years worth of engines would be about a fifth of an engine contract these days), you could cheaply buy a customer chassis from March, or even build your own, with a Hewland gearbox and Girling disk brakes - so the private entries flocked to the sport in their dozens.

Another good entrant would be Pete Lovely - he mostly used old Lotus cars, and even now he still races occasionally in historic events. Perhaps one of his more unusual creations was the Lotus 49/69 - where he stuck the engine, gearbox and rear suspension of a Lotus 49 onto the front end of a Lotus 69, which was a Formula 2 car. Incidentally, he did restore the Lotus 49 that he had cannibalised for that hybrid, and we should be glad he did - because that Lotus 49 happened to be the same one that Jim Clark drove to victory in the very first race for the Cosworth DFV powered Lotus 49.

[Phoenix]

Oooooh...what about this?: the Fry F2, which failed to qualify for the British GP in 1959 driven by Mike Parkes, and mostly known for being the first F2 with a shark fin.

[Faustus]

Oooooh...what about this?: the Fry F2, which failed to qualify for the British GP in 1959 driven by Mike Parkes, and mostly known for being the first F2 with a shark fin.

I had never seen a photo of this car before. I'd heard of it and I knew that the great Mike Parkes had driven it but I had never seen a photo of it before. Thanks Phoenix!

[Pieman]

Proof that the 2011 Le Mans aero designs (especially Peugeot) are nothing new!

Jim Clark Forever - welcome to the site, you certainly seem to know F1 well and I think you'll be a valued contributor,

[badoerfan]

The Forti - am I right in saying that that's the 1995 car, but in the Shannon livery? Which wasn't implemented til after the FG03 was introduced and racing... So why would that car have the Shannon livery?

[Jim Clark Forever]

Technically, the latter ATS team, under the directorship of Schmidt, is ineligible - between 1977 and 1984, they scored 8 points, with three 5th places and two 6th's. Berger did also finish in 6th place in the 1984 Italian GP, but because ATS had not officially entered Berger at the start of the year, his car was not eligible for points. And in some ways, despite the problems within the team, ATS were inventive - they were one of the very first teams to experiment with a carbon fibre chassis, with the 1983 D6.

I do agree, though, that the 1960's Honda cars were, on the whole, underwhelming, and the cars were pretty lethal at times (although, to be fair to them, most of the cars at the time were little better).
in fact, Honda's record in Formula 1 has been fairly good as an engine supplier - the V6 turbo engines for Williams and Mclaren, and the V12 engines for Mclaren in the normally aspirated era - but prone to cutting their losses with unseemly haste (such as dumping Mclaren in the 1990's), and as a manufacturer their record is distinctly patchy. It probably is no coincidence that their greatest success occurred when partnering with experienced technical parters who guided their development - Lola Cars in the 1960's, and Prodrive during the 2004 season.

Now, I wonder if the true golden era of the Reject was during the 1970's, thinking about it. After all, the Ford Cosworth DFV was both competitive and extremely cheap (even by modern standards, once inflation adjusted, a years worth of engines would be about a fifth of an engine contract these days), you could cheaply buy a customer chassis from March, or even build your own, with a Hewland gearbox and Girling disk brakes - so the private entries flocked to the sport in their dozens.

Another good entrant would be Pete Lovely - he mostly used old Lotus cars, and even now he still races occasionally in historic events. Perhaps one of his more unusual creations was the Lotus 49/69 - where he stuck the engine, gearbox and rear suspension of a Lotus 49 onto the front end of a Lotus 69, which was a Formula 2 car. Incidentally, he did restore the Lotus 49 that he had cannibalised for that hybrid, and we should be glad he did - because that Lotus 49 happened to be the same one that Jim Clark drove to victory in the very first race for the Cosworth DFV powered Lotus 49

Thanks for such an interesting reply Mario. I would certainly agree that Automobili Turismo e Sport was more rejectful than Auto Technisches Spezialzubehör; after all forgetting that one needed to be able to take the engine in and out is a pretty major design flaw! However, maybe I just don't understand the rules but I thought that it was about reject cars not reject teams - two of the 5th place finishes were with the D5 model, the D1 gained an undeserved 5th place at Watkins Glen in '79 purely due to Stuck's wet weather driving skills, but otherwise was a dreadful machine and a reject in my book, other than the HGS1 no other ATS ever scored a point. The D6 failed to score a point despite preferential use of BMW engines, which at times were the most powerful around in '83, given that the ATS were effectively the German national team (for example the prominent role that they played in the parade for the opening of the new Nurnburgring), one can believe that the engines were up to Brabham power.

Absolutely, the ability to buy all the parts off the shelf to compete made the barrier to entry in teh 70's far lower than it is today, even setting aside the issue of Bernie and the FIA running F1 as a closed franchise, something for which it is far the poorer in my humble view. Unless my memory is at fault (not an uncommon situation!) I remember reading in the early 80's that a new Cosworth cost £26,500 - if someone could put an exact year to to this I will do the calcs to update this to present costs. Of course there was also an active secondhand market with new engines being cascaded from the leading teams to the also runs, supported by several engine rebuilders.

Pete Lovely and the ex-Tasman Lotuses, what an interesting subject! Of course there is a degree of conjecture in asserting that Lotus 49 R2 and R11 are one and the same, but those who should know seem convinced.

[Phoenix]

Oooooh...what about this?: the Fry F2, which failed to qualify for the British GP in 1959 driven by Mike Parkes, and mostly known for being the first F2 with a shark fin.

I had never seen a photo of this car before. I'd heard of it and I knew that the great Mike Parkes had driven it but I had never seen a photo of it before. Thanks Phoenix!

Errm...well, I've taken it off Google Images without a lot of research
I remember the ATS-BMWs could be quite fast at times (Manfred Winkelhock qualified 5th for the 1984 Belgian GP and was still there when he retired), but the car was terribly unreliable. The 1980 model was very nice looking, and it didn't seem particularly flawed. Jan Lammers in particular qualified 4th for the 1980 Long Beach GP, but he could barely race, sadly. I think it was all down to the volatilty of Gunter Schmidt, just like Ligier and the Guy.

[eagleash]

- having been a close observer of FI for not far short of half a century in my view

You've been following F1 for 50 years? That's awesome

Er..........AHEM!!!!!

Don't knock the Connew.....

[Phoenix]

OK, I admit the Connew project was a prime example of the triumph of the will of a single man, but it's still rejectful, having competed in only a single GP, and retiring from another one because the suspension was broken on arrival because of unproper transportation of the car.

[eagleash]

OK, I admit the Connew project was a prime example of the triumph of the will of a single man, but it's still rejectful, having competed in only a single GP, and retiring from another one because the suspension was broken on arrival because of unproper transportation of the car.

We've been all over the Connew story in other threads. Like many of the cars cobbled together in tiny workshops in the early days the engineering left something to be desired. It was no better when converted to f5000 spec. either.

[Cynon]

I just got a peek at the Shannon Forti posted earlier in this thread, and the car looks like an IRL car from 1997, so you know for sure that it sucked on that basis alone!

[Reverie Planetarian]

Heavens, the Fry F2 looks like somebody's bedroom slipper with wheels.

I think I'll add my support for the BRMs. They sounded amazing and were probably amazingly fast in their day, but in the Top gear spirit they're ambitious, but rubbish.

I love the Tyrrell P34, but the March 2-4-0 never really sold me. Looking back on it, it sort of looks like Optimus Prime crashed into the back of Mirage. Its performance doesn't save it either: I mean, while the Tyrrell was putting out a racing legacy of some sort, the March was being tested, then entered a race here and there to little effect, then was busy being banned. It came too late and used an attempt at innovation that swiftly got it kicked from F1. For that I'd call it a Reject.

[Aerospeed]

A couple of bad cars to add to the list:
Ligier JS5

Not a reject car, but it looks awful.

Brabham BT60


Lotus 109(?)


All really bad cars.

[S951]

The Forti is just the 95b spec model in the 96 colours can tell by the shape of the nose and cockpit sides, the fg03 was a "bit" sleeker

Another one for sale

Brabham BT59/60

http://www.racecarsdirect.com/listing/2 ... ckage.html

[Phoenix]

OMG, now that is a HUGE package indeed...

[mario]

OK, I admit the Connew project was a prime example of the triumph of the will of a single man, but it's still rejectful, having competed in only a single GP, and retiring from another one because the suspension was broken on arrival because of unproper transportation of the car.

Problems with improper transportation are still going on though. BMW nearly had several of their engines trashed during the last few flyaway rounds of the 2009 season when the lorry carrying eight of their engines crashed into a bridge and spilt its cargo. Thankfully, they weren't damaged, but they were concerned about those engines nevertheless.

On another note, another worthy nominee would be the Ensign N179, as seen here:


Pretty ugly, and so were it's qualifying performances, since most of the time it failed to make the grid.

[S951]

OMG, now that is a HUGE package indeed...

3 x 60s and 1 x 59, someone can recreate that awesome pink and purple beast

[AndreaModa]

OMG, now that is a HUGE package indeed...

3 x 60s and 1 x 59, someone can recreate that awesome pink and purple beast

I want to go racing with it!

[S951]

FA12-1 dunno if this would classed as reject but if from memory it was pretty awful

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ARROWS-FOOTWORK-F ... 43a4a0bf36

[Barbazza]

It certainly was. And if you buy it from ebay as is with the engine not running, you could only do marginally worse than Footwork did in the 91 season!

[golic_2004]

Oooooh...what about this?: the Fry F2, which failed to qualify for the British GP in 1959 driven by Mike Parkes, and mostly known for being the first F2 with a shark fin.

Jaws F1

[watka]

It certainly was. And if you buy it from ebay as is with the engine not running, you could only do marginally worse than Footwork did in the 91 season!

I believe the main problem with the car was that it's engine was made out of pig iron.

[Faustus]

It certainly was. And if you buy it from ebay as is with the engine not running, you could only do marginally worse than Footwork did in the 91 season!

I believe the main problem with the car was that it's engine was made out of pig iron.

it was a huge gutless lump of metal and Porsche seems to have conveniently forgotten all about it.

[ElizabethSterling]

Gutless lump is overly nice to the engine, Arrows realised it was nothing more than a dead weight before they'd even put it in the car. According to the research I did on this particular season compared to its rival 12 cylinder engines it began the season 65HP down on the RA121E (715BHP, which finished the season putting out around 730BHP), 60 down on the Ferrari (710BHP) and 45 down on the Lambo (695BHP), not to mention it was the heaviest engine on the grid by about 40KG at a staggering 190KG, (the RA121E weighed 150KG) and overheated if you looked at it the wrong way. The engine they replaced it with, the DFR, output around 10HP less but weighed 45KG less(!)

[Reverie Planetarian]

I would like to nominate the Arrows A2 for this thread. In pithy F1 Rejects blurb fashion, let me post this soliloquy: Embracing of ground effect technology did not equal mastery for terrifying ride.

[dinizintheoven]

This looks like a good place to park this question.

The Virgin VR-01 is, by all measures, an utterly rejectful car. The fuel tank debacle was the worst of its problems, but more technically-minded people pointed to the obvious signs of its first-attempt-at-an-all-CFD approach - which centred mainly on the plainness of the front wing and the shape of the intakes on the sidepods - two straight lines with a perfect semicircle between them, when even Hispania managed something more shapely. It was as if Virgin had been so busy designing that fluted shape of the mose so it looked Ferrari-esque that they forgot about the sidepods and had to knock them up on the back of a fag packet a day before the launch.

This picture has been on Wikipedia since midway through last season - listed as "Timo Glock's VR-01 on display at USTGlobal's office". It has sidepods that are very differently shaped to the plain design that we've all seen... everywhere else. I went back through Forix and looked at all the pictures of Timo Glock last season to see if this car was ever raced - even those from early in the season before the VR-01 had sprouted the shark fin or the Full Tilt Poker sponsorship. I couldn't find any - they were all with the regular sidepod design.

So where did this car come from? Does anyone have any clues? Could it be a design that didn't work, or even an early version that had been tarted up to make it look like the car from later in the season - and if so, how would that explain a transition to a sidepod design that was considerably more basic?