Pellin
Panther
Panther
Yet another East German car that took part in the early F3 races, it was entered by one Harry Merkel and unusually this was an Opel powered example. The Panther 3 took part in 3 races in 1964 with a best finish of sixth at a poorly supported race at Nieubeberg. The car continued into 1965 when it was joined by a Panther Kadett (obviously still Opel powered).
Drivers
1964 Eberhard Winkler.
1965 Peter Brauer, Hans-Hermann Sibbert.
1966 Hans-Hermann Sibbert.
Hawke
Hawke
Hawke Racing Cars was set up in 1969 by ex Lotus Components manager David Lazenby to produce cars for Formula Ford and later FF2000, an early success was the ’69 Scottish Formula Ford Championship for one Tom Walkinshaw. Throughout most of the 70s Hawke produced a number successful cars especially the DL15 that helped establish Derek Warwick’s reputation. In 1974 Mike Keegan, father of Rupert Keegan and owner of British Air Ferries, took a controlling interest in the company and grandiose plans that included an Adrian Reynard designed F1 and F3 cars were announced. Although the F1 car did not appear the F3 car did, however following problems with the F3 car and with the F Ford cars becoming less successful Hawke disappeared from the scene at the end of the 70s.
1976
At the end of 1975 an advert appeared in Autosport from Ken Silverstone for a “Hawke F3”, Silverstone competed for several years at the rear end of F3 grids in a variety of cars and this is a Hawke DL 14 FF2000 chassis that has had a 2-litre Ford twin-cam dropped in the rear. Silverstone did manage a 4th place out of 5 finishers in the opening race of the season, it appeared a few times in other hands in later years.
1975
Designed by Adrian Reynard, the DL18 had a full monocoque tub in L72 aluminium with a high tensile roll cage to F1 standards. Suspension is rising rate and was inboard at the front, a twin brake pedal (a la the Lotus 76) was also fitted. The most unusual feature was the delta shaped rear wing. Various problems with the car meant that Rupert Keegan was never happy with it and it only raced once in the year.
1977
For 1977 Pat Symonds carried out revamp of the car including fitting a conventional rear wing, removing the engine cover and fitting a new cockpit surround. Despite the best efforts of Jan Lammers in the European Championship the car was still none too competitive.
1978
This car was displayed at the January 1978 Donington Speed Show, the board in the background says it is still a DL18 so presumably it was another revamp with new bodywork. It would appear that the car never raced and the Hawke name vanished from the racing scene.
Drivers
1976 Rupert Keegan, Paul Morton (DL14)
1977 Jan Lammers.
1978 Paul Morton (DL14)
Huron
Huron
A very short lived constructor, Huron Auto Race Developments was formed towards the end of 1970 and by summer 1971 it had almost fallen apart. The three principals of the company were Jack Smith, a Canadian, Jo Marquart and Roy Ireland and as was standard practice at the time a F2/F3/F Atlantic was announced in March 1971 with F Ford and Sports Cars to follow. Before anything of significance had happened the company began to disintegrate as a consequence of personnel reshuffles. There was some talk of Hawke taking over the company or its assets but nothing happened and Jo Marquart left to join the just formed GRD. The company did continue into 1972 with a sports car and the F3 car did do one race at the end of the year but that was it for Huron.
1971
The F2/F3/ F Atlantic was shown to the press in March 1971 and it was clearly unfinished. The chassis was a monocoque with a semi-stressed engine, front mounted radiator with the air exiting from the top of the nose. Front suspension was by inboard lower wishbones and a top rocker, the rear was parallel lower links and outboard springs and dampers with inboard brakes.
1972
The SS1E fitted with a Spence tuned Renault engine appeared in the hands of F Ford perennial Syd Fox at the final F3 race of the year at Thruxton in November, the car qualified 27th out of 32 but did not start after the engine stopped on the warm-up lap..
Drivers
1972 Syd Fox.
Palliser
Palliser
Based in South West London, Palliser were a short lived racing car manufacturer, their first car was built in 1968 and the company closed its doors four years later. The type numbers for the cars were WD plus the category designation, the W for designer Len Wimhurst and the D for Hugh Dibley, an airline pilot and racer and patron to the team. Cars were built for F Ford, F3 and F Atlantic, the F Ford cars were race winners and Vern Schuppan won the inaugural 1971 F Atlantic championship in his Palliser. Despite this success Pallisers were never fashionable and as already noted the name disappeared from the scene in 1972. It seems that Len Wimhurst designed an F3 car in 1976, the LRL 376, but nothing came of it.
1970
The WD 3 first appeared in 1970, it was a neat space frame design with the chassis construction sub contracted out to Arch Motors. Suspension was conventional wishbone and the most noticeable feature was the prominent roll hoop. Roger Keele had several promising results including a second at Castle Combe in May at a Lombank round and fourth at Oulton Park in August at a strong non-championship event.
1971
The car was unchanged for 1971 when two works cars were run initially powered by BRM tuned engines. Despite reported handling problems and a lack of engine power several top six places were scored, best finishes were a third for Peter Lamplough in a very strong Shell Super Oil-Motor Sport race at Brands Hatch in October and four 4ths, two for Lamplough at Crystal Palace and Brands Hatch and two for Derek Lawrence at Thruxton and Cadwell Park.
1972
Although the Palliser factory had closed, during the early part of the season Damien Magee ran a slightly modified car and showed that there was basically nothing much wrong with it. The most noticeable alteration was the new nose cone which echoed the F Ford design. Magee’s best finishes were a brace of seconds, one at the opening round at Brands Hatch and another at Oulton Park in April.
1973
Once again a lack of anything better forced Magee back into the Palliser at the beginning of the year until a huge accident destroyed the car at Thruxton in the third race of the season. Magee then found someone to buy a new Brabham BT41 for the rest of the year, however in his three races he did manage a 2nd place at the season opener at Brands splitting the works Marches.
Drivers
1970 Roger Keele.
1971 Peter Lamplough, Derek Lawrence.
1972 Damien Magee, Jac Nelleman.
1973 Damien Magee.
Rak
Rak
Poland’s contribution to F3 racing, Rak (the Polish for crab) was the brainchild of four men Jerzy Jankowski who led the group and his three assistants Krzysztof Brun, Zbigniew Kulczynski and Jerzy Przybysz who had first built sports cars but then, in 1961, moved onto single seaters with a F Junior car. The team then switched to the new F3 producing a spaceframe car with double wishbones at the front and top link, lower wishbones and twin radius rods at the rear. The 1965 cars seemed to favour Wartburg power whilst the 1966 models used Skoda or Ford engines, in 1967 the cars were shown as “PZM” powered and for ’69 and ’70 it was either Ford or Wartburg power units. The cars ran quite well with a handful of reasonable places in German F3 races but their appearances were rare. Jerzy Jankowski had raced his own cars but a serious accident saw him retire in 1966, he also built the Promot (q.v.) F3 car.
Drivers
1965 Longin Bielak, Josef Kielbania, S. Kolecki, Henryk Nowak, Antoni Weiner.
1966 Longin Bielak, Jerzy Jankowski, Josef Kielbania, Wladislaw Szulczewski.
1967 Ksawery Frank, Josef Kielbania, Zbigniew Sucharda, Antoni Weiner.
1968
1969 Longin Bielak, Ksawery Frank, Josef Kielbania, Henryk Nowak, Zbigniew Sucharda.
1970 Longin Bielak, Jan Frank, Ksawery Frank, Josef Kielbania, Zbigniew Sucharda.
Hew
Heve
Hrubon
Wolf
Wolf
The name Wolf is more usually linked with the team that enjoyed a short sojourn in F1 in the second half of the ’70s but a Wolf also appeared in F3 briefly as well. In 1975 Canadian Walter Wolf became involved with the then unsuccessful Williams team, he bought up the remains of the failed Hesketh team and in 1976 the Williams cars were often called Wolf-Williams. Wolf bought up 60 per cent of the Williams team and soon after Frank Williams left the team leaving Wolf in charge. In 1977 he set up a new team, bought in Harvey Postlethwaite to design the WR1 and Jody Scheckter to drive it, the result, a win first time out and two more victories during the season. This competitiveness was not continued, the ground effect Wolfs (Wolves?) WR5 and WR7 were not very effective devices and results in ’78 and ’79 despite having Scheckter, Hunt and Rosberg were poor and at the end of ’79 Wolf withdrew from F1.
1978
Giampaolo Dallara designed the WD1 of which three were built, two for Walter Wolf Racing and one for an Italian privateer. The monocoque proved to be too flexible and it was stiffened during the course of the season. Suspension was conventional and a Toyota Novamotor was fitted, apparently a Hewland FT200 gearbox was used which, if correct, is odd as this is the F2 spec ‘box, the Hewland Mk9 5-speed is the normal unit. Although it is true that in the mid-eighties using a FT200 in F3 was a recognized “tweak” adopted by some teams so perhaps Wolf were just ahead of the times.
The car was generally outclassed by the more established marques, Chevron, March, Ralt etc. but there were occasions when it showed potential especially as it was sorted. Rahal managed 3rds at the Nurburgring and Österreichring and 4th in a heat at Monaco.
1979
For 1979 one Wolf went to Italy and became a Emiliani (see Emiliani entry for details.)
Drivers
1978 Roberto Farneti, Horst Fritz, Miguel Angel Guerra, Anders Olofsson, Bobby Rahal.
1979 Guido Pardini.
