Grand Prix Rejects

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2009/06/29/l ... -of-speed/

A little old because of the forum issue, but brilliant none the less.

Brilliant - thanks for that - if anyone is lucky enough to be there please get some pictures of the car up on here!

Yes!!

C'mon - there must surely be an F1 Rejects reader out there at Goodwood this weekend. Please take some photos and share the love with the rest of us.

OMG, there's a working W12 engine?

Hi there Im new, I was at Goodwood yesterday and saw the Life I couldnt get any photos though too many heads in the way lol, The car still in its same livery as 1990 and after 19 years the reliability is still the same, the car got to the start line ready for its first run when something broke, the mechanics pushed the car to one side to repire the fault, and about 10 to 15 mins later the car was pushed back onto the start line to run, but this time the engine wouldnt fire up, I didnt see if the car got going at all, i got bored waiting, But it did manage a very slow run in the afternoon stint, Its good to see some things never change

Henrique wrote:OMG, there's a working W12 engine?

Or did it have the Judd V8 they reverted to?

noisebox wrote:

Henrique wrote:OMG, there's a working W12 engine?

Or did it have the Judd V8 they reverted to?

The article said: "A Goodwood spokesperson confirmed the car will run with its original W12 engine."
And richlarrousse's post confirms it

Henrique wrote:The article said: "A Goodwood spokesperson confirmed the car will run with its original W12 engine."
And richlarrousse's post confirms it

His post didn't confirm that - only that it was in the original livery. Whoever tried to get that thing running desverves a medal, second only in barvery to the poor sod who agreed to drive it!

noisebox wrote:

Henrique wrote:The article said: "A Goodwood spokesperson confirmed the car will run with its original W12 engine."
And richlarrousse's post confirms it

His post didn't confirm that - only that it was in the original livery. Whoever tried to get that thing running desverves a medal, second only in barvery to the poor sod who agreed to drive it!

From the press release i read it was legendary sports car racer and F1 reject (ironically enough) Derek Bell who said the pecular history lof the life and its W12 engine led him to want to drive the car. I wish i was in England and at Goodwill just to see the attempt to get that car to move

noisebox wrote:

Henrique wrote:The article said: "A Goodwood spokesperson confirmed the car will run with its original W12 engine."
And richlarrousse's post confirms it

His post didn't confirm that - only that it was in the original livery. Whoever tried to get that thing running desverves a medal, second only in barvery to the poor sod who agreed to drive it!

I think he meant the reliability (or lack of) confirmed it!

From what i can tell, it barely ran in 1990. What made them think they could get it going almost 20 years later?

BB01 wrote:

noisebox wrote:

Henrique wrote:The article said: "A Goodwood spokesperson confirmed the car will run with its original W12 engine."
And richlarrousse's post confirms it

His post didn't confirm that - only that it was in the original livery. Whoever tried to get that thing running desverves a medal, second only in barvery to the poor sod who agreed to drive it!

I think he meant the reliability (or lack of) confirmed it!

From what i can tell, it barely ran in 1990. What made them think they could get it going almost 20 years later?

Exactly. As Gary Brabham said on his interview to F1 Rejects: "I did four laps of just learning the track at first. Then I decided to go for it and for the first time I put my foot down. Almost immediately the engine expired."

I read somewhere last night that the Life was 40mph slower than the fastest cars on the straights at Hockenheim, and was rumourde to output only 375BHP. To put that into context the best engine had over 600BHP.

I found a couple of pictures from Goodwood - not how the dirver seems to be sitting on the car rather than in it!

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2009/07/05/m ... peed-2009/

This is interesting also:

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?s ... id=3723455

FINALLY!!
a video of the Life in action!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmYQKXNSHXg

My mum's hairdrier has more horsepower than the Life by the sound of it!

watka wrote:My mum's hairdrier has more horsepower than the Life by the sound of it!

Sounds like a glorified lawnmower!

Really, it sounds similar to the 1980s Formula Easter cars that ran in the Warsaw pact nations with AvtoVAZ 1.3 liter inline-4s. A wonderful little clip for us Reject fanatics. My respect and thanks go to the guys who restored the L190 and F35 components.

I love the edkev94 comment, "Greatest 2 seconds of my life. " Quite.

Hopefully there's more footage of the beast from Goodwood
I've wondered why no footage of the car in full song from 1990 hasn't shown up yet on youtube, because video cameras were readily available then so there must be some footage of pre-qualifying out there somewhere

Wow. Now we only need someone to get their hands on a Lola T97/30 and Moda S921 so we can have a threeway "Worst f1-cars ever" race xD

RejectSteve wrote:Sounds like a glorified lawnmower!

F1 Rejects should add that sound to the podcast intro

DonTirri wrote:Wow. Now we only need someone to get their hands on a Lola T97/30 and Moda S921 so we can have a threeway "Worst f1-cars ever" race xD

Don't forget about the 1990 Coloni-Subaru!! If that race were to happen, all four cars would be prepetually two laps down
You would need a calender to time that race
The life-span of a tortoise is shorter than the laptime of those 4 cars

RejectSteve wrote:AvtoVAZ 1.3 liter inline-4.

Sounds like a glorious engine.

watka wrote:

RejectSteve wrote:AvtoVAZ 1.3 liter inline-4.

Sounds like a glorious engine.

Well, AvtoVAZ is better known as Lada in the West, so...

I love the edkev94 comment, "Greatest 2 seconds of my life. " Quite.

That's me! Small world, this internet thing.

Life w12 wrote:

DonTirri wrote:Wow. Now we only need someone to get their hands on a Lola T97/30 and Moda S921 so we can have a threeway "Worst f1-cars ever" race xD

Don't forget about the 1990 Coloni-Subaru!! If that race were to happen, all four cars would be prepetually two laps down
You would need a calender to time that race
The life-span of a tortoise is shorter than the laptime of those 4 cars

I'd pay too watch that! Not much though...

I've found another video of the Life in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDufPlyYG9A

The only time it's ever been in front of a Ferrari I imagine....

Barbazza wrote:The only time it's ever been in front of a Ferrari I imagine....

And even then the Ferrari was much older than the Life car...

baddriving50 wrote:I've found another video of the Life in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDufPlyYG9A

That's not the driver's proper seating position, is it?!?!

One year at the V8s in Adelaide, the old Beatrice-Haas-Lola had a demo run and stopped half way around the circuit, a bit like the Life car here. But then it always used to break down on the circuit, too.

The driver clearly is too tall for the car. That makes one wonder how tall Gary Brabham and Bruno Giacomelli might be.

I believe that the guy wearing the car like a fancy-dress costume is infact the owner of the car and not Derek Bell as reported. The helmet does look familiar though. But when fellow F1-Reject Arturo Merzario got into the car for it's second run (a coming together of F1-rejectdom so pure it brings a tear to my eye) he was sitting in a 'normal' position in the car, which still looked odd as the cockpit sides are pretty damn low anyway.

baddriving50 wrote:I've found another video of the Life in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDufPlyYG9A

Comically, the Lola is pushed while the Life propels itself (see youtube suggestion). In the video with the Ferrari, the Life doesn't sound bad at all.

Life w12 wrote:

DonTirri wrote:Wow. Now we only need someone to get their hands on a Lola T97/30 and Moda S921 so we can have a threeway "Worst f1-cars ever" race xD

Don't forget about the 1990 Coloni-Subaru!! If that race were to happen, all four cars would be prepetually two laps down
You would need a calender to time that race
The life-span of a tortoise is shorter than the laptime of those 4 cars

If it was bolted together properly, I'd put my money on the Moda S921, personally.

EDIT - Holy crap at the video, he's got his elbows on the outside the car. How in the hell did that pass a safety test? Even in 1990.

Enforcer wrote:

Life w12 wrote:

DonTirri wrote:Wow. Now we only need someone to get their hands on a Lola T97/30 and Moda S921 so we can have a threeway "Worst f1-cars ever" race xD

Don't forget about the 1990 Coloni-Subaru!! If that race were to happen, all four cars would be prepetually two laps down
You would need a calender to time that race
The life-span of a tortoise is shorter than the laptime of those 4 cars

If it was bolted together properly, I'd put my money on the Moda S921, personally.

EDIT - Holy crap at the video, he's got his elbows on the outside the car. How in the hell did that pass a safety test? Even in 1990.

I don't think the driver was seated properly, if you look, you see that his head is above the air scoop. You can use my avatar to see how the driver is seated properly