Formula ford was born out of a request by a driving school(Jim Russell I believe) in England who asked Chapman if he could build an inexpensive car to let students to thrash around,so the detuned a Lotus 22 chassis with a cortina engine and steel wheels with road car tires which became the Lotus 31.Then Fred Stevenson,Lotus East started importing similar cars,now called Lotus 51 and they were imensely popular I don't know who coined the Formula Ford moniker,but the uprights and the suspension was basically the same on the 22,31,51,61 and the 23 Chappers got a lot of mileage out of his bits! Dave CRaddock
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of James S. Kellar Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2006 7:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [F500] Editorial: How did F1000 go wrong? Eric D Christensen wrote: > Actually I believe the FF predated FV. If memory serves, FF sprouted up > in Europe sprouted in Europe in the late 50s / early 60s largely as a > less expensive alternative to Formula Junior (which had become cost > prohibitive due to fairly open engine modification rules). > > FV was an American invention in the late 60s and was intended from the > beginning as a low buck, low tech, home builder friendly club racing > class. While in college in the mid-sixtys (sometime 1966-67 as I recall) with no money to race, I took care of a "rich" guy's race car to generate income. His car was an old beat up Formcar (FV) that was several years old (already maybe 3 - 5 years old). While at a national race at Continental Divide Raceway (Colorado) we saw our first FF, it was a Lotus 51. The guy immediately called Lotus Southwest in Dallas and secured one to be coming in on their second shipment of 51's. It was so new to the US that it came with a wimpy little English rollhoop (approx 6" at the widest point) we sawed it off and constructed a new one that would pass tech. I also remember this was the first time I saw the English method of brazing (in lieu of welding) we took it to an old timer who immediately recognized it as manganese-bronze or silicon-bronze. He told us it was as strong as tig welding, he had some of the matching rod and brazed our new bar on in the same manner We had to run with the assorted formula cars including FB, FC and Formula Juniors until later when the formula ford became a real SCCA class. I'm not sure of any manufacturers that preceded that. Jim in Honolulu ________________________________ FormulaCar Magazine - A Proud Supporter of Formula 500 The Official Publication of Junior Formula Car Racing Subscribe Today! www.formulacarmag.com or 519-624-2003 _________________________________ _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! ***
