F3 History

Alessandro de Tomaso came to Modena from his native Argentina to race Osca sports cars, when he retired he decided to settle in Modena permanently. He began constructing his own cars and in 1961 produced an F1 that would take either a 1.5 litre Osca or Alfa Romeo engine. Over the next few years de Tomaso came up with a string of various competition cars but it seemed that no sooner had a new car arrived than de Tomaso would loose interest and start on another project. All of this meant that although some of his cars were quite competitive they never received the necessary development. In 1969 they produced a reasonably competitive FVA powered F2 car and the following year Dallara was commissioned to produce an F1 car. The resultant car was run by Frank Williams and was driven by Piers Courage, things looked promising with a third place in the International Trophy at Silverstone. Tragically Courage lost his life in the car at Zandvoort and the team understandably lost heart for the rest of the year and at the end of the season de Tomaso gave up the single seater scene and concentrated on sports cars. Sadly Alessandro de Tomaso passed away in 2003.