SDC

sdc
sdc
sdc

SDC

In October 1975 some time Formula Atlantic driver Stephen Choularton announced the construction of the SDC 36. The chassis name was presumably taken from his initials and the car would be built in converted stables at his home in Warrington in Cheshire in conjunction with computer mathematician John Hughes. It was planned that the car would also be suitable to be used in F2 and F Atlantic, nothing further was heard and it would seem the plans came to naught.

Scorpion

scorpion
scorpion
scorpion

Scorpion

The Ford-powered Scorpion was driven by Swiss driver Laurent Rotti, its country of origin isn’t clear but since its only race appearance was in Italy perhaps it was of Italian construction. The Scorpion was entered for a round of the Italian F3 Championship at Monza in September where it failed to qualify. This would seem to be the only outing for the car.

Drivers:

1971 Laurent Rotti.

Sautenent

sautenet
sautenet
sautenet

Sautenent

The Sautenet-Peugeot, presumably constructed by its driver/entrant, failed to qualify for its only three races, at La Châtre in June 1964 and 1966 and on the Bugatti Circuit at Le Mans in September 1966. The Peugeot engine indicates a possible F Junior history.

Drivers

1964 Claude Sautenet.

1966 Claude Sautenet.

Saturn

saturn
The Saturn is the second car in this F Libre race at Mallory Park.

Saturn

The BMC-powered Saturn raced sporadically in UK F3 races during 1964 without being very competitive. From the picture above it appears very small and ran outboard suspension all-round.

Drivers

1964   Alistair Welch.

Sana

Sana76a
The Sana in Formula Atlantic specification.

Sana

The first Sana was a F Atlantic chassis that appeared in the Spring of 1976, it was designed by Gordon Fowell, designer of one of the 1973 Chris Amon-driven F1 Tecnos and like the Tecno it was built by John Thompson The new car was driven by Cyd Williams and it showed some promise with a 2nd place finish first time out. As a result of this success a F3 version was constructed, the F Atlantic versions continued to do well reasonably driven by Cyd Williams, Terry Perkins and Nick May. It was later raced in Libre races in the North of England as the Barton JTB3.

1976

The F3 version of the F Atlantic car appeared only once, driven by Larry Perkins at the Monaco GP support race, it qualified on the last row of the grid and was retired by Perkins due apparently to its evil handling. Evidently Fowell had decided that his suspension design was correct and therefore didn’t fit any roll bar adjustment. The F3 design was the same as the F Atlantic car with its full width nose and pronounced wedge shape provided by the monocoque and bodywork. Power came from a Brown-Ford engine that wasn’t reckoned to be the most powerful around.

Drivers
1976 Terry Perkins.

Safir

Safir75a
Patrick Neve in the RJ03 in 1975.

Safir

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.

1975

Designed by Ray Jessop, with Alan England responsible for the aerodynamics the RJ03 was not dissimilar to a Ralt with its full-width nose and slab sided monocoque, suspension was a conventional wide track design and power came from either a Holbay-Ford Pinto or later a Holbay-Ford twin-cam. Best results were a win at Knockhill for Belgian Patrick Neve backed up by 2nds at Monaco, Silverstone and twice at Thruxton. The design would appear to be a developed version of the Delta RJO3 (q.v.) that was announced in early 1975.

1976

Some minor revisions were introduced for 1976 when a second chassis was built the most important of which was probably the installation of a Toyota Novamotor. Sadly Ray Jessop died early in the year of a stroke aged only 40 which prevented any further development. Best results for Tiff Needell were a 2nd at Thruxton and a 4th at Oulton Park with a handful of other top 6 finishes.

Drivers
1975 Claude Crespin, Geoff Lees, Patrick Neve

1976 Tiff Needell

Safir75
Geoff Lees at Thruxton in his Safir.
Safir76
Tiff Needell finishing 4th at Oulton Park.