Back to Italy again for this early 1970s contender, it was apparently totally conventional Nova-Ford powered chassis. It appeared in 1971 and then did a full season of the Italian F3 Championship racing in 1972 when prepared by Modena Corse. It only recorded two finishes from its 13 starts with a best placing of 7th at Monza.
Drivers
1971 Giuseppe Minozzi.
1972 Paulo Minozzi.
1975 Stephen South.
1976 Luis Mara de Almenara (F375)
The G8 monocoque consisted of a steel frame made of 16 and 18 gauge tubing sandwiched between two layers of fibreglass. The steel frame then acted as an attachment point for the suspension, engine and gearbox. Steel sub-frames are added front and rear for attaching auxiliary components. Front suspension was by lower wishbones with rockers operating the inboard springs and dampers. Modified Triumph Herald uprights were used with an anti-roll bar inside the bodywork. Rear suspension employed reversed lower wishbones, a top link and twin radius rods with outboard springs and dampers, no rear anti roll bar was fitted initially. Rear uprights were Ginetta made magnesium units and the wheels (also of Ginetta make) were 13 inch. The engine was a Holbay-Ford with a 4-speed Hewland gearbox.
Three cars were built and Chris Meek showed the car had some promise but the problems of aligning the spaceframe accurately within the fibreglass tub and the sheer cost meant that Ginetta gave up on the project.
Drivers:
1964 Chris Meek.
There is little information about the Germain-Renault, it first appeared in August 1964 when it completed 2 laps of the Trophée de Cognac held at Cognac and then vanished until the same race the following year when it again failed to finish and was not seen again. Presumably the driver (and entrant) was also the constructor.
Drivers
1964 Roland Germain.
1965 Roland Germain.
1967 Alessandro Braga.
First entered for the Grand Prix de Nogaro in August 1965 this French (?) car (which was sometimes also listed as Gerka) and its French driver did not appear. In July of the following year 2 cars arrived at Magny Cours, the Bazin car failed to qualify and Lafosse did not start.
Drivers
1965 Gérard Bazin.
1966 Gérard Bazin, Jean-Louis Lafosse.
When The Chequered Flag team decided to switch from sports cars to single-seaters patron Graham Warner announced the Gemini (White’s birth sign) Mk 1, this was a conventional F Junior spaceframe with BMC mechanical parts and it was based on the Les Redmond designed Moorland F Junior. The Mk 2 used a Cosworth engine but was not especially successful although popular but things changed with the rear-engined Mk 3 of 1960 which was able to challenge the contemporary Cooper and Lotus designs. Suspension was conventional with wishbones and coil springs/dampers front and rear, radius rods were fitted at the back, a Cosworth Ford engine and five-speed gearbox were standard issue. The Mk 4, although unsuccessful, was advanced for its time (1962) with side radiators and inboard suspension and brakes, a six-speed Jack Knight gearbox was used but proved something of a problem.
A few converted F Junior cars raced very rarely in the first few years of F3 using both BMC and Ford engines, they were not competitive.
Drivers
1964
Mk4
Derek Bennett, Adam Wyllie.
?
Michel Nicol.
1964
Mk4
Alan Lovell-Spencer, Peter Orr.
1967
Mk4
Michael Llewellyn.
Driven by, and presumably constructed by, Czechoslovakian Alois Gbelec this Wartburg-powered car finished second to a Cooper T76 at Jicin (Czechoslovakia) in May 1965, the rest of the field seems to have been composed of East European F3 cars. In 1967 at Brno Gbelec took seventh, a lap down, in a field of both East and West European cars.
Drivers
1965 Alois Gbelec.
1967 Alois Gbelec.
1964
René Bonnet, Roland Charrière.
Based in Milan, Gianpaolo Volpini’s first F3 car was a 1953 500cc car that used a Gilera engine and was quite successful racing in both Italy and France. An abortive F1 project was undertaken in 1954 in conjunction with engine builder Egidio Arzani, they bought a 1950 Maserati chassis and enlarged the engine, which was renamed Arzani, and fitted revised bodywork. The Arzani-Volpini was entered in the Pau GP in April 1955 qualifying at the back of the grid. Tragically during the race driver Mario Alborghetti crashed and was killed. The car was entered for the Italian GP later in the year but was never seen again.
When F Junior became popular Volpini began building, usually Fiat-powered, cars for the Italian market. Consisting of a ladder frame chassis with unequal length wishbones with coil springs and dampers at the front and a Fiat live rear axle and a Fiat gearbox, drum brakes were fitted all-round. Despite having a driver of the calibre of a young Lorenzo Bandini the car was not noticeably successful although he did finish 4th at F Junior support race for the 1959 Monaco GP. In April 1964 a Volpini-Lancia finished 9th in an F3 race at Circuito del Garda and in May 1965 a Ford-powered example entered an Italian Championship round on the Junior circuit an Monza but did not appear. The 1964 car is likely to be a converted F Junior chassis since the Lancia engine was used in later Junior models, perhaps the 1965 entry was meant to be a new F3 design.
Drivers
1964 Angelo Caffi.
1965 Giovanni Lo Voi.
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