Are 6 wheels to much?..........

[rotoryboy]

......................I think so, looks like a bad photoshop effort

linky


Nice bonnet on the BM though

[Fat Audi 80]

I think that 6 wheel might wear its front tyres out quite quick too??

[flossymeister]

Didn't Tyrrell run an F1 car with 6 wheels a while back? I'm sure i had a little corgi/matchbox model of it when i was growing up....

[Jamo]

Where's Lady Penelope?

[S2central.net]

Didn't Tyrrell run an F1 car with 6 wheels a while back? I'm sure i had a little corgi/matchbox model of it when i was growing up....

Yes indeed - in the early 70's - a fantastic thing - it won lots of races and in the true fashion of the FIA was almost immediately banned. It was one of those weird things where there wasn't a rule a said you had to have four wheels... and the tyrell designer went to town with a great idea.

The true racing aficiniados will correct me here, but I think the benefit from the four smaller wheels at the front in the Tyrell was increased frontal grip with less rolling or aero resistance.

Paul

[dirk]

In this link you can see it's already been done in the 70's...

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Tyrell ran the six wheel P34 in 1977, but they were not the only team to make a six wheeled car - March built the 240 in the same year but didn't find any advantage, and in 1982 Williams did the "freight train" car FW08B. The March and the Williams had the four wheels at the rear and all four were driven. FIA outlawed four wheel drive which put a stop to having four rear wheels, and six wheels in general were also outlawed. Much later four wheel steering was outlawed too (Benetton were the only team to run 4WS in anger when Schumacher was driving).

The Tyrell was the only successful six wheeler (it came 1st and 2nd in Sweden in 77).

As for six wheeled road cars - haven't any of you guys heard of the old Wolfrace Sonic? Built by the hugely talented Nick Butler, featured a pair of Rover V8 engines mounted side-by-side and four front wheels. Wolfrace wanted eight wheels (four at both ends). Nick Butler wanted four wheels. They compromised!

Must try and find a picture of the thing...

__MDC__

[ottawa coupe]

i think the goal with the tyrrel was smaller frontal area with smaller tires. don't see the advantage in the covini, it's got a full body if i had to guess, just a publicity thing

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Problem is, the smaller frontal area argument that is always ...er, wheeled out ...is totally invalid. The projected area of the car was unaffected, because the much larger rear tyres were still as much of an obstruction as they ever were. The cars with four smaller rear wheels were a much better argument for reduced projected area. You could argue that the cross section at that point in the car was reduced - but the aerodynamics of rotating wheels are very messy, and the advantages would be easily outweighed. I remember someone connected with the car (I actually worked with one of its designers) saying that the real reason was more about front end grip than anything else.

__MDC__

[Keeper of The Kitten]

A better example of an attempt at reduced projected area is the totally startling AVS Shadow Can Am car - the one with the tiny wheels all round. That car failed to perform largely because it was difficult to make the little wheels work on bumpy tracks, and the suspension was a nightmare (everything was tiny). More on that car, anon.

__MDC__