P – F3History

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

Piltette

Pilette Cars was founded by former F5000 champion Teddy Pilette and based in England at Snetterton. Pilette had a successful career in sports cars as well as single seaters and had raced in F3 himself in the 1-litre F3s.

1994

Pilette Cars produced the Martin Ogilvie designed Fiat-powered Pilette PWT 94C in June of 1994.Ogilvie has previously been responsible for the controversial twin-chassis Lotus 88 F1 car and this new design was meant to combine high downforce with low drag. It certainly looked different with its unique front and rear wing design. It seems that the chassis was effectively the Ralt 94C that had been raced briefly at the beginning of the year in the British F3 Championship. The fact that it had been withdrawn due to its lack of performance did not bode well for the Pilette. Early reports of the Pilette’s testing indicated it was a very wayward beast indeed. Entered by Pilette Speed Tradition in the 1994 German F3 Championship the car sadly didn’t continue the family tradition for speed as it was very much a back of the grid machine in the handful of races it competed in. At its first race at Hockenheim Jeremy Dufour walked out from the team in disgust when it was eight seconds off the pace. At the end of the year the Pilette name vanished from the scene.

Drivers

1994 Paolo Coloni, Dirk Müller.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

Piper

Piper Cars had first started in the sports car market building an open topped car in 1963 and then moving onto the more refined GT types that could also be raced. The later cars tended to be based on Ford running gear and the GTT model sold in respectable numbers. In 1969 they went as far as to enter two Group 6 Oldsmobile-powered GTRs at Le Mans, only one arrived and that had to be withdrawn due to various problems. The introduction of VAT made the kit-car market no longer economic and they briefly tried building a complete “turnkey” car but the recession of the early 1970s saw the company end up in receivership.

1966

Announced in mid-1966 the Piper was the work of designer Tony Hilder and was intended as a multi-formulae machine, it was built at the Piper Cars base, Campbell’s Garage in Hayes, Kent. Also involved in the project were engine man Bob Gayler, Ken Packham (chassis development) and the owner of Campbell’s George Henrup. The chassis was a monocoque but unusually it was constructed of mallite aluminium and balsa wood. Mallite was a sandwich of aluminium/wood/aluminium and was used on the 1966 F1 McLaren M2A. The tub was strengthened by four cast magnesium bulkheads. Front suspension was wide-based lower wishbones with upper links and radius rods attaching to the dash hoop. At the rear it was reversed lower wishbones with top links and twin radius rods. There was some anti-dive built into the front and Armstrong spring/damper units were fitted front and rear. Girling alloy brake calipers were used with the discs outboard at both ends of the car. The 8″ front and 10″ rear wheels fitted to the prototype were cast in magnesium and designed to have a turbofan cooling effect on the brakes. The engine bay was constructed to take a variety of engines and it was said that the car was so light that in F3 guise ballast would be required. The car in the picture was fitted with a 1650cc Ford engine and there is no record of any F3 cars actually having been built.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Promot

A Wartburg powered device that appeared as late as 1970, its only result was a fifth in a poor field at the Szczecin track in north-west Poland. It was built by Jerzy Jankowski of Rak (q.v.) fame, it had a spaceframe chassis with unequal length wishbones at the front and a top link and twin radius rods at the rear.

Drivers

1970
Kris Frank.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

Puma

Alan McKechnie’s small team only made the one attempt at racing car construction although it was notable for being somewhat different from the usual run-of-the-mill F3 cars that were around in the 1970s although it never achieved great things. In addition to being used in F3 it seems that in 1972 a Ford BDA engine was fitted to the car and it was entered in the somewhat unusual Rothmans 50,000 race at Brands Hatch in 1972, designated HM23 it did not start the race.

1971

Designed in 1969 by Tony Hilder (who had worked on the McLaren M1A sports car), the monocoque of the Puma was very unusual as it was made of Mallite an aluminium/balsa wood sandwich that was also used in the 1966 McLaren M2B. Strong and light it was arguably the first appearances of composite construction that today is the norm. The tub was a full length structure stretching back to the gearbox and only weighed 10 lbs (4.5 kg). The two foam-filled fuel tanks were inserted horizontally inside the tub. If that wasn’t enough rising-rate torsion bar suspension was also used although this apparently caused some disharmony in the team. The torsion bar itself took the load strain rather than the chassis pick-up points. The Puma was hidden away in a Peckham lock-up for two years as McKechnie ran a F5000 team. Discovered and driven by Bob Evans the car showed promise with a pole position first time out. Initially hampered by poor BRM engines a change to a Vegantune unit improved things a lot until Evans had a serious testing accident which put the car and himself out of racing for the rest of the season. Best result of the year was a 3rd at Crystal Palace in June.

1977

Revised in 1977 as the 377 and entered for two races to give Nigel Mansell his start in F3, the car was something of a “bitsa” with new suspension using Lola uprights with Chevron wishbones at the front and March ones at the rear. A March nose and a GP Metalcraft wing were added, an engine was borrowed and the Puma went racing. In its two races it was apparently quick in the corners, slow on the straights and unreliable (it retired both times).Some reports say that the basis of this car was based on an unraced 1972 Puma Mk2 design

Drivers

1971 Bob Evans.
1977 Nigel Mansell.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

Pygmee

Marius Dal Bo (hence the MDB type numbers) ran a heating equipment company in Annecy and in an effort to help his son Patrick’s racing career he built a F3 car for him in 1965. Over the next few years Pygmée built a small number of F3 cars without any great success until in 1969 a F2 car was produced. For the next five years the company produced a series of uniquely styled cars that on occasions showed signs of being competitive, possibly even winners. Sadly however the looked for breakthrough never happened and at the end of 1973 Pygmée withdrew from F2 having given up on F3 in 1970.

1965

The first F3 Pygmée was apparently a small rather spidery machine with a spaceframe chassis. The only results of consequence were a fifth at Chimay and a second at Monza both for Patrick Dal Bo.

1966

Continuing in 1966 there was no real improvement Dal Bo winning at Opatija and finishing second at the Sachsenring, but opposition was weak mostly consisting of East German F3 cars. It’s not clear if this was the same car that was raced in 1965 but it was described as having a short wheelbase and not handling too well.

1967

Experienced South African Trevor Blokdyk joined the team in 1968 and took a win at Hameenlinna in Finland, otherwise a couple of sixths were the only other worthwhile results. It seems as if a new car was introduced for this year, it was the first Pygmée monocoque and had a reputation for being neat but not too stiff causing the car problems on the bumpier tracks.

1968

Two cars were used in 1968, the first was the MDB10 a modified Formule France chassis. It was a spaceframe design with double wishbones at the front and outboard springs and dampers. At the rear it used a top link, lower wishbone and radius rods with the springs and dampers outboard also. A Holbay engine and a Hewland gearbox were used. The MDB11 was a monocoque version of the MDB10, it used a bathtub monocoque with a tubular frame for the engine. The same engine and gearbox as the MDB10 were also used. Montlhéry obviously suited the cars as Dal Bo took a first and a second there in the monocoque car whilst Offenstadt took a third in the spaceframe car.

1969

The MDB14 was introduced for 1969, seemingly Pygmée reverted to a spaceframe and fitted it with a wedge-shaped body. Dal Bo used both this car and the monocoque MDB11 but spent a lot of time crashing, coupled with Pygmée’s preoccupation with F2 racing there were no decent results obtained.

1970

Pygmée staggered into 1970 with the same cars and the same lack of success and at the end of the season they rang down the curtain on F3 racing.

Drivers

1965 Patrick Dal Bo.

1966 Patrick Dal Bo, Wilson Fittipaldi, Eric Offenstadt, Jean Sage.

1967 Trevor Blokdyk, Patrick Dal Bo, Michel Jourdain, Jean-Pierre Moussier.

1968 Patrick Dal Bo, Jean-Pierre Hanrioud, Jean-Pierre Moussier, Eric Offenstadt, Jean-Paul Sulpice.

1969
Patrick Dal Bo.

1970 Hervé Bayard, Patrick Dal Bo.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

Pilbeam

Like many other of the top constructors, Mike Pilbeam was yet another who cut his teeth on the 1172 Formula building his first car in 1959. In later years he would work for many top teams including BRM, for whom he would design the 1964 four-wheel drive car, Ford, Lotus and Surtees. In 1975 Mike set up Pilbeam Racing Designs from which would spring many designs for numerous different uses, some under the Pilbeam name, others on a consultancy basis including the Wheatcroft R18 F2/F3/F Atlantic car and the Lec F1. Although F2 and F3 cars were built Pilbeam’s main claim to fame has been a string of very successful race and championship winning hill climb cars.

1979

The MP44 was based on the monocoque of the MP42, the F2 chassis, it ran with skirts (they were permitted in 1979 only) and was Toyota powered. John Bright ran it in a few Championship races during the year, at the end of the season it was tested in narrow-track, full-width nose format.

1980

The MP45 was a reworking of the MP44 using the lessons learned from the 1979 end of season testing. Again it was entered for a few races in the 1980 British Championship but a lack of finance meant that no development could be undertaken.

1981

The MP51 appeared midway through the 1981 season and raced infrequently for the rest of the year. Sadly it was never competitive, it was overweight and it seemed to be disaster prone.

1982

The MP51 continued into 1982 and received some development during the year, most visibly the pylon front wing was replaced with a normal nose and wings. Unfortunately the main problem was still its obesity which still remained and there was no improvement in its competitiveness. This was Pilbeam’s last try at F3, they concentrated on hillclimbing in which they would be very successful

Drivers

1979 John Bright.

1980 John Bright, Ian Shaw.

1981 Rick Whyman.

1982 Josh Wright.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Penny

Very few details about this Ford powered car that competed in a handful of French and German events, it was entered and driven by David Coode and due to this and the name of the car, Penny, I am guessing it is British. It might well be a F Junior car but it isn’t listed in any of my references, when it did race it scored no significant results.

Drivers

1964 David Coode.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Pellin

The only details of this car was that it (they?) raced in Italy in 1971 and was Alfa Romeo powered, results would seem to be undistinguished.

Drivers

1971 Comelli, Alessandro Guidetti.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

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.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

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.

Piltette

1994

Drivers

Piper

1966

Promot

Drivers

Puma

1971

1977

Drivers

Pygmee

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

1970

Drivers

Pilbeam

1979

1980

1981

1982

Drivers

Penny

Drivers

Pellin

Drivers

Panther

Drivers

Palliser

1970

1971

1972

1973

Drivers

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