F3 History

Safir was the name of an engineering company owned by John Thorpe and the first car to be called a Safir was the renamed F1 Token RJ02 which was acquired and run in a couple of British F1 races in 1975, the original intention being to gain experience before launching a new design in 1976. The Token F! was designed by Ray Jessop who had left Brabham’s to work on the Ron Dennis’ Rondel F1 car which never ran due to budgetary problems, it was taken over by another team and renamed the Token and then became the Safir. In 1975 Safir built and raced a F3 car, after extensive winter testing by Tony Trimmer it showed promise but as most of the available budget went on building the car there was very little left over to develop it into a consistent front runner. An initial batch of five cars was planned in an effort to take on March but despite the car showing its competitiveness it would seem that the extra cars never materialised. Safir continued into 1976 but the death of Ray Jessop saw the project wound up.