F3 History

Category: Manufacturers

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Kdv

kdv
kdv
kdv

Kdv

The KDV 4 first appeared in the year-old Class B of the German F3 Championship in 1989, entries had been made in 1988 but the car did not appear. It was VW powered and in its two 1989 races it qualified and finished at the back, it appeared a few more times in 1990 but either failed to qualify or failed to start.

Drivers

1989 Jaroslav Vorel.

1990 Jaroslav Vorel.

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Katano

katano
katano

Katano

The Katano FZ31 raced in the 1987 Japanese F3 Championship, the Toyota powered car was entered by Racing Post Katano which linked to the driver’s name would indicate the possibility of a driver/constructor combination. It only did four races, not qualifying for one and retiring in the other three after qualifying at the rear of the grid.

Drivers

1993
Tamihide Katano.

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Quasar

quasar
The Quasar in 1971 still showing its De Sanctis heritage on the bodywork.

Quasar

In 1971 Christiano del Balzo, under the Quasar name, built 10 F Ford 1600 cars based on the 1970 De Sanctis car, del Balzo had raced various examples of the De Sanctis marque in Italian F3 over the years using the pseudonym “Gero”. It would seem as if some of these cars may have been converted to F3 specification and raced in 1971 and ’72. The two pictures of the Quasar show it fitted with a 1600cc Ford crossflow engine but the wheels and tyres are clearly F3 sized. In 1971 a spaceframe chassis wouldn’t necessarily have been at a disadvantage, constructors such as Brabham and Alpine were quite happily winning races with their spaceframe designs. The Quasar had a few reasonable runs and del Balzo, racing as “Gero”, had a best finish of 5th at Imola. In 1972 two teams ran Quasars but half way through the season when both had only managed a couple of 7th places both teams switched to Brabhams and the Quasar was seen no more.

Drivers

1971 “Gero” (Christiano del Balzo).

1972 “Gero” (Christiano del Balzo), Marazzi.

quasar2
The engine is the Ford 1600 crossflow but the wheels and tyres are F3 sized.
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Xr3

xr
Terry Ogilvie-Hardy in his Monoposto Project XR car at Becketts in the late sixties.

Xr3

Terry Ogilvie-Hardy competed in a variety of classes including F Junior where he used a number of different cars from Alexis. He also built a number of Alexis-based cars under the Project XR banner such as the Monoposto car shown above
xr3
Terry Ogilvie-Hardy proudly standing next to his Project XR3.
Built in 1971 by Terry Ogilvie-Hardy and Brian Norton Project XR3 was displayed in Rackhams (which appears to be a clothes shop) in Birmingham. It was fitted with a Rowland engine and used Palliser uprights and wheels and seemingly never raced.
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Zimmspeed

zimmspeed88
The Zimmspeed SM.

Zimmspeed

The Zimmspeed SM was designed by former F2 entrant Erich Schwaller who also ran Bernard Santal in the 1983 European F3 Championship. Consisting of a carbonfibre/honeycomb composite chassis fitted with a Spiess VW engine the car was entirely Swiss made. Driven by Christian Mettler it apparently ran in the Swiss national series, which of course due to the ban on racing in Switzerland took place on other circuits in Europe. Results aren’t known but it did record a ninth at Monza in the opening round in April. A car entered by Zimmspeed Racing raced in Germany in 1989, it was entered as a Zimmspeed Dallara 389 so presumably it was a Dallara with some Zimmspeed inspired modifications. Since its best finish all season was a twelfth at Hockenheim any modifications may actually have been detrimental.

Drivers

1988 Christian Mettler.

1989 Hanspeter Kaufmann (see text).

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Urd

Urd
Urd

Urd

URD were a minor German sports-racing car constructor and in 1976 they built a F3 car, the 376, there were at least three chassis completed, one car had a Toyota Novamotor engine, the second a BMW and the third a Ford, presumably covering all the bases! There were a couple of top ten finishes in the German F3 championship in 1976

Drivers

1976 Werner Fischer, Dietmar Flöer, Thomas von Löwis.

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Gueparda

F3Guepardo_1966

Gueparda

The Guerpardo (Spanish for cheetah) was displayed in 1966 at a Racing Car show, suspension was inboard at the front and outboard at the rear. From the picture it’s not clear what engine was fitted except it is not a standard F3 engine, it appears to have a twin-choke, downdraught carburettor fitted, at this time the regulations called for a single-choke carburettor and side-draught would be the norm until 1968. It would seem that Guepardo also built cars for Spanish Formula IV racing. There is no record that the car ever raced.
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Greenwood

01b
The Greenwood at the 1966 British GP meeting at Brands Hatch. (Picture copyright of John Greenwood)

Greenwood

A self-built car by Austin apprentice John Greenwood that raced in F3 in 1965-66, it used the steering wheel, drivers cowling and the twin Pannier fuel tanks from the F Junior Diggory Gwyniad and was powered by a BMC engine. Since the BMC engine was only competitive in 1964 and had quickly been left behind by the Ford unit there were no significant results either in the UK or on the odd continental outing.

Drivers:

1965 John Greenwood.

1966 John Greenwood.

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GRD

GRD72b
1972 F3 Champion, Roger Williamson at Mallory in his GRD 372.

GRD

As Lotus withdrew from the production side of racing car manufacture there were a number of personnel in the Hethel area of Norfolk looking for new employment. Several of these ex-Lotus employees, notably Mike Warner, designer Dave Baldwin and two leading technicians, Derek Wild and Gordon Huckle formed Group Racing Developments by linking together with local engineering company, Griston. To finish the group Jo Marquart joined from Huron as designer. With Lotus, and soon Brabham, leaving the production racing car market things looked good for GRD and initially they had a lot of success and in 1973 joined up with Denys Dobbie’s DART operation with grand plans for the future. However Dobbie pulled out in early 1974 and by the end of the year production ceased as prospects for the following year were not good. Three former employees set up a service operation and in 1975 Van Diemen took over this and the 375 F3 car (of which a modified version became the Van Diemen F3 car).

1972

The 372 consisted of an aluminium bathtub monocoque with tubular sub frames front and rear and conventional suspension. The bodywork had a pronounced wedge shape with large side mounted radiators. The car gained a reputation for being easy to set up and forgiving to drive and during the season it produced a lot of wins especially as other drivers switched over to it. The prototype chassis was debuted in some end of season races in the UK in 1971

1973

Most of the changes to the 373 were to make production of the chassis easier but it seemed that the factory preoccupation with F2 meant that the F3 car lacked some development and although successful it began to receive a less than flattering press from some of its drivers. A chassis flexing problem was solved mid season but it wasn’t until the end of the year that the real hard testing was carried out that eventually cured the problems. Alan Jones, Brian Henton and Richard Robarts chalked up 9 wins between them so the season wasn’t a total disaster by any means.
GRD373a
Alan Jones in the wet at Thruxton in his DART GRD 373.
GRD372d
Andy Sutcliffe on the debut of the 372 at Brands Hatch in October 1971.
GRD72
Roger Williamson, winner of the Shell/Motor Sport International Championship.

1974

F3 racing was in the doldrums in the UK in 1974 with very small grids so the first major changes to the GRD design didn’t really help matters. The chassis/suspension remained basically as before with the changes to the radiator positioning and the new nose being the main modifications. Alex Ribeiro and Pedro Passadore had some reasonable runs but the writing was on the wall for GRD.

1975

The GRD 375 at the 1975 Racing Car Show.
The first GRD 375 was in fact an updated 374 which shows that once again this was an evolutionary update. Ian Taylor ran in a works version and some support was given to some of the European competitors. The car retained its full width nose but the radiators were moved rearwards again. Highlight of the year was undoubtedly Renzo Zorzi’s fortunate victory at Monaco in a 374. At the end of the year GRD closed down and the F3 operation was taken over by Van Diemen.

Drivers
1971 372
Andy Sutcliife

1972 372
Tim Brise, Tony Brise, Cesare Doneda, Patrick Duchamp, Adelmo Fossati, Johnny Gerber, Bengt Gilhorn, Neil Ginn, Mo Harness, Hans-Peter Hoffman, Alan Jones, Masami Kuwashima, Barrie Maskell, Kurt Müller, Jorge Pinhol, Pierre-Francois Rousselot, Robin Smythe, Fernando Spreafico, Andy Sutcliffe, Keiichi Tahara, Ian Taylor, Bernard Vermilio, Jo Vonlanthen, Roger Williamson.

1973
373
Thomas Betzler, Bernhard Brack, Tony Brise, Wolfgang Bülow, Ingvar Carlsson, Rudolf Dötsch, Harald Ertl, Jeremy Gambs, Alexander Güttes, Sigi Hofmann, Alan Jones, Dieter Kern, Gernot Lamby, Heinz Lange, John MacDonald, Jac Nelleman, Gunnar Nordström, Pedro Passadore, Richard Robarts, Tony Rouff.

372
Tony Brise, Jacques Coulon, Roger Craven, Neil Ginn, Hans-Peter Hoffman, Alan Jones, Richard Knight, Norman Moffett, Jac Nelleman, Masami Kuwashima, Pedro Passadore, Larry Perkins, Rod Smith, Fernando Spreafico.

?
Walter Flückinger.

1974
374
Hakan Alriksson, Alberto Colombo, Gaudenzio Mantova, Gian-Massimo Martoni, Luis Moraes, Marcos Moraes, Jac Nelleman, Pedro Passadore, Alessandro Pessenti-Rossi, Alex Ribeiro, Renzo Zorzi.

373
Bernhard Brack, Günter Hölker, Roger Hurst, John-Erik Johansson, Gernot Lamby, Jac Nelleman, Gunnar Nordström, Tony Rouff, Len Smith.

372
Hans-Peter Hoffman, Kurt Müller.

?
Ingo Hopp.

1975
375
Ingvar Carlsson, Werner Fischer, Den Greer, Shaw Hayami, Donald MacLeod, Jac Nellemann, Ian Taylor.

374
Doug Bassett, Derek Cook, Jac Nellemann, Porky Thyling, Mike Tyrrell, Renzo Zorzi.

373
Hakan Alriksson, Ulf Alriksson, Bernhard Brack, Hans Deffland, Dan Greer, Günter Hölker, Roger Hurst, John-Erik Johansson, John Lain, Anders Olofsson, John Rust, Clas Sigurdsson, Len Smith, Marc Surer, Henrik Spellerberg, Fernando Spreafico.

372
Giancarlo Commazzi.

1976
375
Tommy “Slim” Borgudd, Ingvar Carlsson, Sören Hansen, Stefan Johannsson, John Nielsen, Jan Ridell.

374/6
Henrik Spellerberg.

374
Roger Andreason, Fernando Spreafico.

373/6
Doug Bassett.

373
Anders Olofsson, John Rust, Rudi Sehr.

GRD374b
The GRD 374 was notable for a switch to a front radiator and full-width nose come configuration.
GRD375a
The GRD 375 at the 1975 Racing Car Show.
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Graf

graf
graf
graf

Graf

Entered and driven by Franz Graf the Graf raced in the German F3 series in the mid sixties. Unusually it had a 1-litre Simca engine and it achieved some success in minor races including a win at Ulm (in a very poor field) and second at Mainz, both in 1967.

Drivers

1965 Franz Graf.

1966 Franz Graf.

1967 Franz Graf.

1968 Franz Graf.

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