Manufacturers – Page 3

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

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)

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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.

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.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

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.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Hew

Very few details about this Volkswagen powered car that competed in a handful of German events, it was entered and driven by Helmut Eicker. It ran reasonably well in a few minor events with a best finish of seventh at Mainz-Finthen.

Drivers:
1965 Helmut Eicker.

Pygmee

1965

1966

1967

1968

1969

1970

Drivers

Pilbeam

1979

1980

1981

1982

Drivers

Penny

Drivers

Pellin

Drivers

Panther

Drivers

Hawke

1976

1975

1977

1978

Huron

1971

1972

Palliser

1970

1971

1972

1973

Drivers

Rak

Drivers

Hew

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