F1 oddities - photos

[Roger]

I’m sure some of you will be able to help me out – I’m building up a collection of pictures of ‘strange’ F1 cars; that is, both ‘normal’ F1 cars appearing in strange, un-typical liveries, and F1 cars which just look, well, strange.

I guess I must miss all the weird and wonderful colours of the private entrants of the 70s. Anyway, here is a list of some more recent pictures which I recall seeing, but don’t have. Please post any shots of these, or others of a similar nature:

Bridgestone test car
This should be a fairly easy one, as there were lots of photos around at the time. You know, the Ligier with the orange/white paintwork, as driven by Damon Hill. (was it just a Ligier, or was there an Arrows too?)

Michelin Test Car
Even easier, as this was very recent, and there were pics in Autosport and several French magazines. It’s the one with the big Mr Bibendum logo I’m looking for, not the plain white one which appeared in 2000. (Got several pics of that).

Middlebridge Benettons
My memory is a bit hazy on this, but as I recall, round about 1987 or so, Middlebridge tried to enter a couple of Benettons in either the Italian or Belgian GP (?) The entry was turned down (presumably because this was long after the time when private entrants had effectively been barred from F1), but I’m sure Autosport had a picture of the cars. I recall that they were 2-tone (split down the middle in BAR style), possibly black and white. (Or maybe it was just a black and white picture I saw).

McLaren launch car
Before the West colours were finalised, the MP4/12 was launched in orange livery. I have one (rather poor) photo, but there were lots published at the time.

Other launch/pre-season colours
BAR
Everyone remembers this – the BAR launch of the car in 2 separate liveries. But has anyone got a photo which clearly illustrates the all-over Lucky Strike and 666 liveries?

Lotus
Bad memory time again, but after the loss of Camel sponsorship, wasn’t the next Lotus launched in ‘replica Lotus 25’ colours? – green with yellow stripe?

The white McLaren(s)
Senna testing the Mp4/9 Peugeot?

The black Ferrari
I know nothing about this except that Minichamps produced a model. Presumably all cars look like this originally, but any photos?

Honda
I’ve got several shots of the 1999 car – one set of the all-white Barcelona version, and others of the red and white But somewhere in the back of my mind are memories of another Honda test car from much earlier in the 1990s

Bravo
I’m probably wrong on this, because I have one story about Bravo which is illustrated by a photo of an Andrea Moda, and from not long afterwards, a photo of a Simtek 941. Did the Bravo ever exist to the extent of having its photo taken?

(ditto Durrango, Ikuzawa etc. Did any of the planned 90s cars ever exist, apart from the Dome and the DAMS?)

BOSS cars
To their credit, most owners of historic F1 cars tend to keep them in near-original colours, but what about the not-quite-historic, not-quite-current cars which ran in the BOSS series? I seem to have missed out on this series completely, and apart from shots of Sarah Kavanagh’s very nice red-and-white Jordan, nothing.

[SHerbert]

The White McLaren
This was in 1993 and it was the MP4/8 fitted with a Chrysler engine that was tested by Ayrton Senna and Mika Hakkinen at Estoril and Silverstone. The car had no sponsors on it at all. Just take an image of the '93 McLaren, paint it totally white, and there you have it.

The black Ferrari
This was the 1998 Ferrari F300, which was tested by Michael Schumacher at Fiorano around the New Year before its official launch. The are four pictures of it in the 8 January 1998 issue of 'Autosport' magazine

Honda
The early 1990s Honda was shown off a few of times in demonstration runs at Suzuka, driven by Satoru Nakajima, between 1992-1994. The car was designated the Honda RC101, and appeared in an all black livery.

Bravo, Durango and Ikuzawa
I don't think the Bravo ever existed beyond the drawing board. Likewise for the Durango P01 and Ikuzawa HW-011, I've seen drawings of these cars but doubt they were ever built.

Here are some images of Formula 1 cars racing in the BOSS series, that I have found.

www.autoimages.co.uk/boss_formula/
Tony Worswick (Jordan 194) and Karl-Heinz Becker (Minardi M195)

www.kockneykoi.co.uk/racing/raceteam.htm
Details and photos of the team that runs two Benetton B194's for David Hutchinson and Dave Shelton

http://www.seaquest.demon.co.uk/f41i...nettonf1_1.jpg
Image of Dave Shelton driving the Benetton B194 at Silverstone

http://www.seaquest.demon.co.uk/f41i...jordanf1_1.jpg
Tony Worswick in the Jordan 194 at Silverstone

And from www.barc.net/gallery.htm an image of the Thruxton race of 1999. This shows Tony Worswick (Jordan 194) leading Klaas Zwart (Footwork FA13) and Rob Gray (Tyrrell 023) in third place. Two F3000 Reynard's follow.

[Leo]

This is the Honda RC100 tested by Satoru Nakajima at Suzuka in 1993:

[Boniver]

Roger, sHerbert, Leo

fine and good info
thanks

[Roger]

Thanks for the Boss leads, and for jogging my memory about the Mclaren - Chrysler, of course. Its been mentioned elsewhere in this forum, if only I'd taken the time to read everything.

And thanks for the great Honda photo. Please keep them comming. And if anyone else is loking for photo oddities, let me know if I can help. (BRM P230 etc. - I think someone was looking for that earlier).

Roger

[SHerbert]

Here are a couple more links that may be of interest;


http://www.f1-live.com/f1-2001/en/ph...s-001004.shtml
Pictures of the Michelin test car.

http://www.f1-live.com/f1-2001/en/ph...team-bar.shtml
The launch of the BAR 'dual livery.'

[Joy Newman]

Hi Roger,

Interesting to read. You may find this link helpful - http://www.brooklands.org.uk

Will keep my eyes open.