Classic Grand Prix Cars
by David Finlay (26 July 2006)
Karl Ludvigsen's superb study of long-ago Grand Prix technology covers what the subtitle describes as "the front-engined era". This does not mean that cars whose engines crossed the finish line after the driver did are excluded, since to do so would be to ignore the Auto Unions of the mid- to late-1930s, as well as several less important but equally fascinating machines.
The front-engine, rear-wheel drive layout - which, though it was superseded in Grand Prix terms many years ago, continues to give a certain aesthetic satisfaction - does however dominate the period to which Ludvigsen has devoted himself here. In the first-ever Grand Prix, held in France in 1906, all the cars had their engines in the front.
The book concludes in the 1960 season, by which time Cooper had finally established beyond all doubt - through the winning of two World Championships on the trot - that putting the engine in the back was the way to go about the business of build an F1 car.
1906 to 1960. That's a high proportion of the entire history of motoring, starting at a time when cars were still a novelty and ending long after they had become a means of mass transportation. Immense amounts of experimentation went on during those years, partly because so many now-familiar concepts were being developed from scratch, partly in order to find ways of beating the other guy, and partly through the battle (still going on today, after more than a century) between rule-makers who want the cars to be slower and engineers who want to make them faster.
To understand all this it's necessary not simply to give a long list of race results, but to examine technical innovations such as front brakes, supercharging, valve gear development and intake tuning, to name just a few of the successful ones.
The unsuccessful ones are part of the story, too, since they illuminate the story in the same way that disproven theories and extinct animals give extra insights into science and biology. The Bugatti Tank (the only ugly car that company ever built), the streamlined Voisin and the very early rear-engined Benz are all cases in point.
And, if anything, these cars can be more fascinating than the successes. There can hardly have been a more astonishing attempt at designing a Grand Prix car than the Trossi-Monaco of 1935, which had an air-cooled two-stroke engine with 16 cylinders (but only eight combustion chambers) arranged in a radial formation. This extraordinary unit was mounted in the nose and driving the front wheels, but the car, "regrettably," in Ludvigsen's words, "was never brought to raceworthiness".
Even among Grand Prix enthusiasts, it's unlikely that more than a few will have heard of the Trossi-Monaco. It's equally unlikely that it will be the only surprise in the book. I like to think I'm reasonably well-informed about motorsport history, but oh my, Ludvigsen fires off obscure information and curious facts at the rate of several per page.
What's more, he does it in a style that's as comfortable to read as it would be to listen to if you were chatting with him in a pub. Ludvigsen is a man of great knowledge with the rare ability to be able to share it in a witty and accessible style.
(An example is one of Ludvigsen's Laws of Motor Racing: "It matters not how absurd the Formula is; if a major motor company wants to go racing at a given time it will do so, whatever the obstacles. Statements indicating anything to the contrary are to be taken with multiple grains of salt." This refers to a situation in the early 1930s, but the Law was in force before the first Grand Prix in 1906, and still applies today.)
The book operates approximately on a decade-by-decade basis, but history doesn't conform to the calendar quite as easily as that, and there are no qualms about extending the Forties through to 1951. To enliven the narrative still further, there are separate sections within each chapter about great drivers (Christian Lautenschlager, Tazio Nuvolari and Alberto Ascari), great leaders and manufacturers (Ettore Bugatti, Alfred Neubauer, Enzo Ferrari and John and Charles Cooper) and some of the technical innovations mentioned above, plus a section on How And Why The Nazis Backed Grand Prix Racing.
Contemporary reports of major races are also reprinted, and along with all the text there is a fabulous selection of photographs, most of them taken from the comprehensive Ludvigsen Archive.
The most recent car mentioned is well over 40 years old now, but the book vibrates with contemporary relevance. It shows the path that led to the current scene, and makes it clear that however far we have advanced technically since 1960, modern-day levels of brilliance, heroism, misguidedness and daftness in the design, development, management, maintenance and driving of Grand Prix cars are nothing new: they are as old as the sport itself.
Classic Grand Prix Cars: The Front-Engined Era 1906-1960, by Karl Ludvigsen, is published by Haynes at £25.00. ISBN 1 84425 318 X. More details at www.haynes.co.uk.
