Long Lost - Wolf 1979 Series

Wolf Racing was founded by Canadian Oil Magnet Walter Wolf in 1977 after an ill feted start made in partnership with Frank Williams in 1976.



The Wolf team with Dr Harvey Postlethwaite designing the cars came flying right out of the box in Argentina 1977 scoring a debut win with Jody Scheckter at the wheel of the Wolf WR1. Scheckter impressed further by driving to two more wins in 1977. The 1977 series Wolf design ran WR1 - WR3 same as the chassis numbers.

During the following season the second series Wolf WR4 - WR6, with ground effects side pods that were all the rage in 1978, was less impressive and Jody, who had been courted by Ferrari well before his Wolf contract was up, left to join the red team from Maranello.



The third series Wolf, which ran WR7 to WR9, apparently seen here at The Cotswold Motoring Museum, was designed by Dr Harvey Postlethwaite who had been reunited with former Hesketh driver James Hunt for the 1979 season.

As ironic luck would have it former Wolf driver Jody Scheckter would go on to win the 1979 World Drivers Championship in his first season with Ferrari while ex World Champion James Hunt quit the Wolf Team after the Monaco Grand Prix having struggled to qualify better than 10th in seven races and scored one 8th place finish and six retirements.



Keke Rosberg took over the driving duties for the rest of the year but with no improvement in the teams performance Walter Wolf sold his team onto the equally struggling Fittipaldi brothers at the end of 1979.

Walter Wolf kept one of the third series cars while Fittipaldi upgraded the remaining two cars into Fittipaldi F7 spec with a centre post rear wing and heavily revised side pods with out the rear flick ups and built a third F7 from scratch.



The Fittipaldi F7 cars all but disappeared from public view in the early 80's. According to the museum description provided by the cars owner Andrew Smith by 1982 the Fittipaldi Team was in administration and all of the teams assets were acquired by ADA Engineering.

Andrew a James Hunt fan, and former Mini racer, saw WR7 race, with Keke Rosberg driving, at Silverstone in 1979 and bought the car from ADA Engineering with a Cosworth DFV engine. Some of the third series Wolf style body work, and unique '79 Monaco spec twin element front wings have been refitted to this chassis which still has F7 running gear, a Fittipaldi in Wolf clothing.

At this moment there are inconsistencies in the accounts as to which third series Wolf chassis became which Fittipaldi F7 chassis. Not having seen which, if any, chassis plate this particular vehicle, seen at the Cotswold Motoring Museum, is carrying I cannot be sure exactly which, of the two Wolf chassis or three Fittipaldi chassis this is.

If you have evidence as to which of the Wolf third series chassis were transformed into the Fittipaldi F7 series chassis please chime in below or send me an e-mail to the address which appears at the very bottom of the blog page.

My thanks to Steve Holter, and Norman Jones from The Nostalgia Forum for their contributions to today's blog.

Hope you have enjoyed todays Wolf edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres' and that you will join me again tomorrow for a look at a world champions daily driver that is coming up for auction on Saturday. Don't forget to come back now !

A Noble Effort - Hesketh Ford 308B # 308-2

Mid way through 1972 James 'Hunt The Shunt' got fired by the STP March Formula 3 team for taking over a vacant seat with a rival team at Monaco after his own car had broken down and been hit by another car.



James found himself another ride with the ambitious Hesketh Team founded by Thomas 'Alexander' Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh, who inherited his title aged just four.

The Hesketh team were not experiencing much joy in the 2nd tier European Formula 2 championship and in a double or quits move Lord Hesketh decided that he may as well be loosing his fortune in the top tier Grand Prix Championship for the 1973 Season.



Things picked up rapidly as James quicky found his feet in Grand Prix racing, notably finishing second in the season ending US Grand Prix running Hesketh's March 731 engineered through the season by Dr Harvey Postlethwaite. The Hesketh team also brought a legendary ' joie de vivre' to the Grand Prix paddock.



In 1974 Dr. Postlethwaite designed a new car based heavily on the March 731 from the year before. James in the new Hesketh 308 scored a debut pole position at the non championship 1974 Race of Champions ahead of the Ferrari's of Clay Regazzoni and Niki Lauda, and then came home first from pole in the non championship International Trophy at Silverstone.

For the rest of the 1974 season the teams effort suffered from poor reliability mixed with a couple of podium finishes enough for Hesketh to finish a credible 6th in the manufacturers championship and James 8th in the drivers championship.



Lord Hesketh was adamant about not accepting sponsorship for his team and the cars were upgraded to 'B' spec for 1975, the front radiator was replaced by radiators mounted beneath the rear wing. The cars reliability was still less than stellar but when he could get across the finish line James always scored points and often podiums.

On the 22nd of June 1975 the team finally came good at the Dutch Grand Prix held on the drying Zandvoort circuit, after making an early pit stop for dry tyres James was able to leap frog leader Niki Lauda when he made his pit stop and held on to take the Hesketh teams only victory, the last ever by an unsponsored team.



James finished an impressive 4th in the 1975 drivers championship and Hesketh 4th in the constructors championship. Alas the good Lord had to call time on his Grand Prix party for lack of funds and sold up at the end of the season Dr. Postlethwaite and his last Hesketh design 308C joined a partnership between Walter Wolf and Frank Williams, while James Hunt went and drove for McLaren and the remains of the Hesketh team using revised 308B chassis upgraded to 'D' spec continued to participate in the 1976 season under the direction of Bubbles Horsely the team manager.

US readers might remember the Hesketh team going out with a front page bang, in qualifying for the the 1975 James team mate Brett Lunger was launched into flight by a chicane kerbstone and a photo of the Hesketh crashing back to earth made the front pages around the world. Brett and the car recovered to make the start of the race but retired soon after.



The car featured in today's blog is the #308-2 chassis which James drove to victory in the Dutch GP. It was owned by Lord Hesketh until 2007 and was to be auctioned at the Silverstone Classic Auction next week however it has already been snapped up and sold by private treaty.

Hope you have enjoyed today's Nobel edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres' and that you will join me again tomorrow when I'll be taking a look at James Hunt's world championship winning car. Don't forget to come back now !

'Fury' Returns - Ferrari 312 B3 #010

The first time I saw and heard a Ferrari racing in anger was on March 17th, 1974, in the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. The day started out extremely wet and grey by the time a school friend, his parents and I had made it from the car park to the spectator enclosure we were all soaked through to the skin, with in minuets the cars filtered out of the pit lane opposite and there they were, two bright red Ferrari's almost luminescent in the rain drenched gloom with a delightful throaty musical noise emanating from their 3 litre / 183 cui 312 flat 12 motors.



A couple of weeks ago when I found myself in front of one of those very same Ferrari 312 B3's, at Goodwood, the contrast in the weather could not have been greater, but my absolute joy at the sight of it was not in the least diminished, even though this time the car made no sound as it was pushed into it's allotted spot in the Goodwood paddock.



The Ferrari 312 B3 was never going to win any awards for beauty if it looks like it was designed by committee, that is because it was.



In 1972 designer Mauro 'Fury' Forghieri built an experimental Grand Prix car in which he had tried to arrange all the cars ancillary components, oil tanks and coolers, as close to the centre of gravity of his new design as possible. The vehicle known as the 'Snow Plough' was extensively tested but the handling proved to be too nervous to ever be entered in a race.



Mid way through 1972 Mr Ferrari was not well and took some time off from the day to day running of his company and Mauro Forghieri, under pressure from FIAT executives in Turin found himself dropped from the team designing the 1973 Ferrari Grand Prix challenger which was eventually designed by Franco Rocchi Giacomo Caliri under the direction of FIAT's Stefano Colombo.



The 1973 Ferrari 312 B3 featured Ferrari's first ever aluminium monocoque chassis which, in another Ferrari first, was manufactured by Thompson in England. The engine was used as a stressed member of the chassis following a lead set by Colin Chapman in 1967 with the Lotus 49 which used the Ford Cosworth DFV as a stressed member of the chassis, thus saving the considerable weight otherwise necessitated by an engine subframe.



The long wide and low 1973 312 B3 including chassis #010 seen here were not a great success and upon his return to work in the summer of 1973 Mr Ferrari withdrew his cars from Grand Prix racing for several races and recalled Mauro Forghieri from his duties at the Fiorano test track and tasked him with making the 1973 car more competitive.



'Fury' as Forghieri was allegedly nick named applied all of the lessons learned from the 'snow plough' project to the large 1973 B3 chassis mounting long thin inclined radiators behind the front wheels and oil tank ahead of the rear wheel to reduce the polar moment of inertia in an effort to improve the cars handling.



Upon their return to the track the reconfigured cars were not any more competitive but over the winter of 1973/74 with the arrival of Niki Lauda the cars were extensively tested and refined into a much more competitive proposition for the 1974 season.



For 1974 the 312 B3's appeared with completely reworked interim bodies that featured tall air boxes as pioneered by future Ferrari designer Dr Harvey Postlethwaite on James Hunt's #27 Hesketh March 731.



With future Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo now heading the racing team management the revamped cars showed an immediate and consistent improvement in qualifying and in the races.



Chassis #010 shown here was qualified 3rd in the hands of Niki Lauda at Brands Hatch for the non championship Race of Champions. Niki led during the early stages of the race but in a twist of irony he was over taken in a breath taking move on the outside of Paddock Bend by this chassis former incumbent Jacky Ickx who drove a Lotus 72 during the 1974 season.



A couple of races later in Spain Niki Lauda won his first Grand Prix in a newer 312 B3 chassis with the definitive bodywork of the type worn by chassis #010 at Goodwood.

Lauda finished 4th in the 1974 season World Drivers Championship while more experienced team mate
Clay Regazzoni was in contention for the championship right until the last race of the season when he was piped to the post by Emerson Fittipaldi in a McLaren.

My thanks to Aardy at Ferrari Chat for confirming the chassis number.

Thanks for joining me on this Fury edition of 'Gettin' a lil psycho on tyres', I hope you'll join me again tomorrow when I'll be looking at a Super Hugger. Don't forget to come back now !