Brabham BT46 Fan Car

[Bolton Midnight]

30 years ago it won in Sweden

Shame we don't see anything as radical as this anymore

http://www.autosrapidos.com/superautos/b/brabham-bt46b01.jpg

[ArrowsFA1]

The win that shouldn't have been :p

I read somewhere that Tyrrell, as well as Lotus, developed their own version of 'the fan' but Bernie withdrew the car before it was banned. A field full of fan cars could have been interesting :eek:

[Bolton Midnight]

I can't remember but did it make a different sound?

I know the complaints were about dust from the back, but Murray had of course done Chapman over so it would have been banned.

[ArrowsFA1]

Don't know about the sound but there's a good article about this car here (http://www.forix.com/8w/fancar.html). As it says "Bernie Ecclestone (team manager/owner of Brabham) decided that it was better to sacrifice the short term advantage of the fan car than to compromise the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA), of which he was president. This proved to be a wise move in the event of the FOCA/FISA wars of 1980 and '81."

[wedge]

I'm just wondering whether they could get away running that concept now.

By that I mean the fan weighs quite a bit and with aero technology now compared to then. Up against the fan, diffusers would do a reasonable job.

[Bolton Midnight]

Was the 'aerodynamic parts must not move' rule aimed at cars like this?

[D-Type]

Some teams developed moveable wings - steep angle of attack and high downforce at a corner and shallow angle (feathered) on the straight to reduce drag. This was the original target of a "no moveable aerodynamic devices" rule.
The rule was invoked to cover flexible and sliding skirts which you needed for optimum ground effect.
And then came the fan car. If the fan was primarily for cooling it was legal but if it was [I]primarily[I] for aerodynamics , it was illegal.

[Rollo]

30 years ago it won in Sweden
Shame we don't see anything as radical as this anymore.

No it's not. It's a bloody horrible thing and I would have hated to follow it.

"It is like a bloody great vacuum cleaner. It throws muck and rubbish at you at a hell of a rate". - Mario Andretti 16th June 1978, The Times


A field full of fan cars could have been interesting :eek:

"The closest we could get to the ****in thing was 90ft. Four laps after the start my visor was covered in dirt and oil; I couldn't see a damn thing." - James Hunt 17th June 1978, The Times

A field full of these things would have provided the most boring race yet seen with cars following each other a sufficiently large distance so that the drivers could have the luxury of actually seeing where they were going.

I think quite rightly that the FIA bit this one in the bud as soon as they did.

[Bolton Midnight]

No it's not. It's a bloody horrible thing and I would have hated to follow it.

"It is like a bloody great vacuum cleaner. It throws muck and rubbish at you at a hell of a rate". - Mario Andretti 16th June 1978, The Times

Driver of the leading Ground Effect car of course.

But doesn't sound too nice to behind one.

[clavius85]

YouTube delivers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-eKJ6G6XAc

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Driver of the leading Ground Effect car of course.

But doesn't sound too nice to behind one.

"If you don't like it, overtake or **** off" was Lauda's comment if I remember ir correctly...

[Bolton Midnight]

Sounds like Lauda, good bloke

[PETE ARON]

Ahhh, I do miss the days of inovation when the cars looked very different from each other and engines had different designs and sounds. You never know who would come up with a fantastic new car.

Though we can never go back, things are kind of technically boring now. The cars look pretty much identical except for the aerodynamic gadgets and the engines are almost identical in design and sound. Paint them all the same color and it would be hard to tell them appart except for the aero flips. Too bad. Too bad.

[Bolton Midnight]

Agreed, nice when the Ferrari looked nothing like the Arrows and not all cars had 4 wheels even. Single or double airboxes, big side pods, sloping side pods, big noses, round noses, big rear wings, small reat wings etc real variety.

Condoms, porno mags, booze, cigarette sponsorship etc

Eeeh jumpers for goalposts when I were a lad.

[futuretiger9]

No it's not. It's a bloody horrible thing and I would have hated to follow it.

"It is like a bloody great vacuum cleaner. It throws muck and rubbish at you at a hell of a rate". - Mario Andretti 16th June 1978, The Times



"The closest we could get to the ****in thing was 90ft. Four laps after the start my visor was covered in dirt and oil; I couldn't see a damn thing." - James Hunt 17th June 1978, The Times

A field full of these things would have provided the most boring race yet seen with cars following each other a sufficiently large distance so that the drivers could have the luxury of actually seeing where they were going.

I think quite rightly that the FIA bit this one in the bud as soon as they did.

Did Mario make his quote before or after Lauda had breezed past him in the early laps of the '78 Swedish GP?

[ArrowsFA1]

Did Mario make his quote before or after Lauda had breezed past him in the early laps of the '78 Swedish GP?
Before, during qualifying IIRC.

[futuretiger9]

Before, during qualifying IIRC.

There is some wonderful footage from practice at Anderstorp, with all of the rival drivers, team managers and designers quizzically surveying the fan-car. Bernie is just standing there, relishing the gamesmanship.

[philipbain]

I saw the Brabham fan car running at the Goodwood Festival Of Speed in 2001, it was running as rough as a badgers arse but it was nice to see such as novel machine in the flesh, it was invented out of nessecity as the fanless car had 2 major problems, lack of ground effect due to bulky boxer engine and insufficient cooling, the fan cured both of these problems! Shame it was banned as it was ingenius but had it not been banned F1 cars would have all become bizarre reverse hovercrafts!

[Bolton Midnight]

Had Ferrari done it with their boxer engines it would have been accepted I'm sure.

[ArrowsFA1]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1d7iR72UVh4

[52Paddy]

Cheers for the video, Arrows. Looking at those old Lotus' and Brabhams standing on the grid before the start, I can sense the raw speed and danger which was associated with the sport at that time. The drivers appear as hardcore sportsmen. It makes todays F1 look wimpy, and more so when coupled with the barriers around this extreme of technical inventiveness. Alas, days long gone.

[markabilly]

Great video, but they were not the first to think of it:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars

The most unusual Chaparral was the 2J. In addition to a powerful 700 hp engine, and a three-speed semi automatic transmission, the back of the 2J housed two 17-inch fans driven by a 45 hp snowmobile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowmobile) engine. The purpose of the fans was to 'suck' air from under the car to provide downforce. This gave the car tremendous gripping power and enabled greater maneuverability at all speeds, which cannot be achieved by simpler aerodynamic devices such as diffusers and wings. Since it created the same amount of vacuum under the car at all speeds, down-force did not decrease at lower speeds. With other aerodynamic devices, down-force decreases as the car slows down or achieves too much of a slip angle, both of which were not problems for the 'sucker car'. It also had ground effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_effect_in_cars) skirts to keep air from leaking in, a technology that would appear in Formula One (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One) several years later. The 2J competed in the CanAm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CanAm) series and often qualified at least a couple of seconds quicker than the next fastest car, but was not a success because it was plagued with mechanical problems. It ran for only one racing season in 1970 as its technology was quickly outlawed by the SCCA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCCA) (even though it was approved by the SCCA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCCA) prior to the car's first race). The SCCA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCCA) succumbed to pressure from other teams, McLaren (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren) in particular, who argued that the fans constituted 'movable aerodynamic devices' which were outlawed by the international sanctioning body, FIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIA). There were also complaints from other drivers saying that whenever they drove behind it the fans would throw stones at their cars. McLaren (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren) argued that if the 2J was not outlawed, it would likely kill the CanAm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CanAm) series by totally dominating it - ironically, something McLaren (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren) had been doing for years[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral_Cars#cite_note-0). A similar suction fan was used in Formula 1 eight years later for the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_Swedish_Grand_Prix), by the Brabham BT46B (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabham_BT46#Brabham_BT46B_.E2.80.93_the_.E2.80.98 Fan_car.E2.80.99) but was banned soon after

[ShiftingGears]

The 2J:

http://ashcom.homestead.com/RMH3257W.jpg

[52Paddy]

Looks like the rear end of a generator you'd see in a derelict industrial estate! Still, I have the utmost respect for the creativity of the designers and the people who invent new phenomenons like these :up:

[markabilly]

Thanks, theugsquirrel, photo comes from a good website, http://ashcom.homestead.com/index.html

worth a look to those interested.....

Note the clear plastic rear spoiler, good to be able to have a clear view of what is behind-----but it would never work on today's f1 cars, as where would all those sponsor decals go????

[callum122]

Such a shame this technology wasn't allowed to develop. If it had I can't imagine how fast F1 cars would be able to corner.