Tyrrel P34

When I was growing up (in the early '90s) I remember watching vision of F1 in days gone by of a six wheeled F1 car. I always used to ask my dad "What car is that?" And getting the answer "A funny looking one."

I've been reading up on "Project 34" as it was known, and I guess it was a revolutionary car of its time, even if its aims weren't really met on the F1 track.

Is there anyone here that watched those six wheelers race? If so I'd be really interested to hear from you.

yep i never saw it when the car origioanlly raced cos im too young but martin stretton races one in the thoroughbred grand prix series and some special historic races at monaco, silverstone etc.....and yep its one seriously nice car. personally its one of my favourite f1 cars ever. watching it wind its way down craner curves at donington followed by 20 other historc cars is something special

I think the original idea behind it was to keep the airflow over the front of the car as smooth as possible. The front wheels disturbed the airflow so they had 2 sets kept within the height of the body work. It took a bit of time to get sorted, heavy steering etc but any the end it did reasonably well. Williams built a version with 4 wheels at the back, but 6 wheelers (or cars with more than 4) were banned, so it never raced.

I have read (again not being around to see the Tyrrell race in F1) that a problem with the P34 is that the front tyres never offered enough grip compared to other cars, for Goodyear were unable to undertake a tyre development programme, with the sole purpose of designing tyres for Tyrrell.

Interestingly, there have been a number of 6 wheeled F1 cars over the years. Aside from the aforementioned Tyrrell and Williams, a Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser raced in the '57 Indy 500 (then part of the F1 World Championship, of course) whilst in '77 March briefly raced the 240. Both of these examples had one set of wheels at the front, followed by two rear axles. Another unraced example was an adapted Ferrari 312T2, which was conventional in all aspects, apart from their being four wheels mounted on the rear axle.

Martin brought the P34 to the Brands Hatch Superprix earlier this year. Even though he had no intention of racing it that weekend, he took it out the truck and put it on display.
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1921/brandshatchhsccsuperprix7may2006067bat0.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brandshatchhsccsuperprix7may2006067bat0.jpg)

I have read (again not being around to see the Tyrrell race in F1) that a problem with the P34 is that the front tyres never offered enough grip compared to other cars, for Goodyear were unable to undertake a tyre development programme, with the sole purpose of designing tyres for Tyrrell.


Yes, I think that was the case. Goodyear couldn't develop the smaller tyres at the same speed as the larger ones which all the other teams were using.

I seem to remember that the original car had a lot of front suspension problems and Derek Gardener had several attempts to get to work. I think he eventually widened the track which changed the car completely.

The original cars had windows in the the cockpit so that the driver could see the wheels. Some say to make sure all the wheels were still on the car. One came off once and the driver didn't notice!

There is also info on other 6 wheelers here:
www.f1nutter.co.uk/tech/6wheels.php

and here: www.egan37.fsnet.co.uk/tyrrellp6.htm

All very interesting... Didn't know there were more six wheelers than just the Tyrrell!

As well as the still born Williams, based on an FW08, March also produced a six wheeler (designated the 2-4-0) and like Williams they put the two extra wheels at the back. The car didn't race in F1 as it was alledgedly a sponsorship tool but the drive sytem was bolted onto a 761 and loaned to Roy Lane who Hillclimbed the car with some success at wet meetings.

:cool:

PS Chatters it is spelt Tyrrell

The P34 has always been a favourite of mine to.

I first saw one at Brands Hatch in 1977 (or 8) when it was driven by Jody Schecter (that well known spelling mistake) entered by 'Elf' petrol.

Can't remember where it finished but Hunt won only to be disqualified for the infamous '1st lap incident'. Victory being given to Lauda.

I have built the Tamiya large scale model and recently took photographs at Monza in the garage of the real one during the TGP race (2005).

As far as I know, the 'windows' were 'cut' so that the driver could see the front wheels (the early version did not have them). I believe they gave up with the P34 after two years.

I spoke to Martin Stretton once who remarked that 'it was like being in a tobogan! because even with the windows it was difficult to see the fromnt wheels.

Will add photos to a later posting but early ones are transparencies.

The Brands Hatch race was 1976 - the picture on my wall shows Scheckter's P34 snaking away from the fourth row of the grid.

I waqs looking for something else, but came across this.

In car footage from Tyrrell P34

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GewFbY0zz8&mode=related&search=

Also, more info here:-

http://www.oldracingcars.com/type.asp?TypeID=P34

The aforementioned Ferrari.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j156/Rescuedude/312t2_6w_f1_1976.jpg

Imagine smokin' them up off the grid...

Yes, I remember now that 1976 was the year, thanks allenbrown.

We watched at the exit of Druids and saw the Paddock Hill incident which was caused by Regazzoni charging through the field. Hunt hit someone and damaged his front suspension. I remember also the anger of the crowd when it was announced that Hunt could not restart the race. A track invasion would have certainly happened.

Lauda was then refered to as 'Super Rat' which he carried on his visior. Don't know why he was called Super Rat... does anyone?

Also have photos and the Tamiya model of the 312T2 Ferrari. The model has the 'tea pot' air scoop which can back into fashon some years ago.

From 76 onwards I attended every BGP and the European at Brands Hatch (85). Managed to photo Lauda in the Maclaren rounding Druids during the tyre testing day. This was his last appearence in a F1 car since he injured his hand and did not drive from them onwards. Watson replaced him for the European (Mansell's first victory) finishing 7th. He was largely hounded by the press for a poor showing but considering that he had not driven F1 for many (years/months?) was I felt a great achievement!

Since 1996 I have 'flagged' all BGPs which is a much better way to see the action except you can't take photos!

I was marshaling at the at the bottom of the hill from Druids at Graham Hill bend and got a good view of the underside of Hunt's car as it went up in the air at Paddock.

While they were debating when to restart the race, Denis Jenkinson, the Motorsport reporter was at our post chatting. He sat in the middle of the track as a protest and started to wind the crowd up in the car park behind (with a big grin on his face).

I think Lauda was called the rat as his 2 front teeth stuck out, so he looked like one!

The aforementioned Ferrari
Thanks for posting that - I was intrigued as to what it looked like.

Was the Tyrrell the only one that actually raced in a GP?

Yes I think it was.

Was the Tyrrell the only one that actually raced in a GP?
The answer to that question is open to conjecture. In '57 a Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser did race in the Indy 500 which was part of the F1 World Championship, but I don't think the race carried the Grand Prix title. So although the Tyrrell is the only six wheeled car to have raced in a Grand Prix and conformed to F1 regulations, it isn't the only six wheeled car to have taken part in Formula 1.

I think the Auto Unions used 2 sets of rear wheels for Hillclimbs. Did they ever use them in a race?

Kipper,
Indianapolis was a WDC qualifier but the it wasn't a formula 1 race - the 3 litre s/c Novis ran when the limit was 1.5 litre s/c or 4.5 litre u/s.

Alan,
I think the Auto Unions did sometimes race with twin rears. The ERA vouturettes certainly did.

Come to think of it, Raymond Mays ran twin rears in the postwar Swedish ice GP which may have been a Formula 1 race.

TheFerrari and the March or Williams 2-4-0 cars never ran in GPs. March couldn't get the transmission to stay together and the Williams testing times were so fast that they banned 6-wheelers immediately. Probably the powers-that-be realised that a GP field of 6-wheeled cars would lose all credibility and GP racing would become a joke.

At Monza 2005:

http://www.ten-tenths.com/forum/D:\MyPhotos\Monza May 2005\DSCF0036.JPG

Need to find out how http works.....

Uh... Yeah.

The P34 was very competitive in 1976,but by 1977 with the widened cockpit coaming it was only an also ran,that same year saw the next leap in technology with the Lotus 78 with ground effects,and at the British GP that year some French guys turned up with a turbo car.The writing was on the wall for the 6 wheel concept.

So what made the Williams FW08B so damn fast?

Simple answer, it wasn't any faster than the 4 wheel car.

I read somewhere that it completely obliterated lap records in testing and the FIA quickly banned it... As they do.

Many of you will have seen the Williams coz Jonatahan Palmer raced it at Goodwood in the early days as I remember. It was a damn quick car i reckon but not really any quicker from what I remember reading at the time.
The P34 was a brilliant car in my eyes, actually very pretty of you look at it!

Jody and Patrick totally dominated Anderstorp in 76 but even Ronnie couldnt get the thing to work in 77. As people have already said I think Ken struggled tog et Goodyear to develop better tyres for one car, the differences in grip were doing strange things to the wear rate as i remember and at some tracks they were struggling. I think the car was real quick in a striaght line though, low frontal area maybe?

P34 was good on the tighter tracks.On a fast track the speed advantage of having the small front wheels was offset by having the big back wheels still exposed in the airflow.
Did the Williams car ever run a race distance,the 4 rear wheels concept threw up other problems like dragging an extra set of suspension and brakes around,extra gear box/drive shafts,not to mention would the 4 small tyres wear as good as 2 conventional big ones,as the rear set of the 4 would have less cooling airflow than the front ones.

Maybe the costs at the time would have been to high, but I think Williams would prefer race wins, which in turn brings sponsorship $...

If you are interested in six-wheelers, there is an excellent P34 website:

http://www.project34.co.uk/

And my site features some info and pictures of the March 2-4-0:

http://www.geocities.com/simontmallett/240march1.html

From what I read about the 6 wheels FW07 when it was tested at Le Castellet, maxi speed was about 35 Km/h faster than the normal car but understeer was huge. Mechanical understeer I guess, the FW07 was not designed as an original 6 wheels and weight distribution was bad. The FW08 was, from the beginning, designed for 6 wheels and they must have done it right, the short wheelbase putting more wheight on the front. For the P34 I have old french Auto Hebdo mags of that time with columns of P.Depailler. Everybody remember its taste for the technical side and in his columns are full of P34 stories. I was at Monaco historic GP this year and could take photos of the P34, which did 1st and 3rd, the battle of M.Stretton against 2 Penske was a great moment :

http://www.gurneyflap.com/formule170's2.html