One of the great privileges of my job is that I am occasionally sent books to read and review. My office has, over the years, started to resemble a rather ramshackle motorsport library more than it does a working space conducive to intelligent thought and I am delighted to report that at the start of this week, the library grew once again.
The tome which arrived at my door is truly a book that all self respecting motorsport fans should consider purchasing, because to my mind it ticks all the boxes a book can tick. Beautifully written, gloriously illustrated, and printed to an exceptional level of quality, “Art of the Formula 1 Race Car” has instantly placed itself among my favourite motorsport books.
Its 208 pages are filled with some of the most stunning images of racing cars you will ever see, as the story of Formula 1’s history is told through its most beautiful cars. And that’s one of the things I like the most about this book – it’s not necessarily about the most successful cars, just the ones whose aching beauty has set them apart from the competition. The quality of the photography at the hand of James Mann also gives us a detailed look at the engineering excellence of these creations, all of which are the real deal, the proper racers and not museum replicas. Indeed, the very first car profiled, the Alfa 158 is THE car driven by Guiseppe Farina to victory at the very first Formula 1 Grand Prix in May 1950.
From there, we are taken on a beauty-driven ride through F1’s past, stopping to gaze at the Maserati 250F, the Mercedez-Benz W196 streamliner, Lancia D50, BRM P57, Brabham BT20, Lotus 49B, Lotus 72, Tyrrell 003, Tyrrell P34, Ferrari 312T3, Williams FW07, McLaren MP4/4, Leyton House CG901, Jordan 191, Williams FW14, Ferrari F1-2000 and finally the McLaren MP4-23. Some list, I’m sure you’ll agree.
What marks this book out from your regular coffee table F1 photo album however, is Stuart Codling’s wonderfully written commentary. Stuart perfectly captures not only the stories behind the concept, design and realisation of these magnificent cars, but also manages to provide a history of their racing careers whilst also reflecting the heartstring-pulling passion which their sumptuous lines evoke. And with expert analysis from design legend Gordon Murray, you’re pretty much in F1 heaven.
Stuart’s one of the best writers in the business, and his first book has been a long time coming. I would advise any and all F1 fans to check out his blog, and to invest their hard-earned on his rather brilliant book.
However, if you’d rather not pay for one at all, then you’ll be very pleased to hear that I was accidentally sent two copies, and Stuart has agreed that I can give one away to the readers of my blog. Hurrah!
If you’d like to win a copy of the book, simply reply to this post and let me know your opinion on the single most beautiful F1 car ever designed. It can be one of the ones from the book, or one which you think has been a staggering omission from the list. Let me know your reasons on why you love it so much and find it so beautiful, I’ll narrow the list down to my top five and get Stuart to pick his favourite from that list. Et voila, we’ll have a winner.
Shall we say all entries to be in by chequered flag at the Chinese Grand Prix?
Lovely.
The Buxton Blog 
Cooper Climax T53. And not just because Jack Brabham (fine Australian) won in it. Beautiful car – modern cars cannot compare.
sounds like a good read
FERRARI 156
Eagle T1G
Being just that little bit longer to fit Dan Gurney just gives it a really nice balanced look, really makes it look so graceful. The most majestic blue colour ever seen in F1, and that nose. Everyone else just went for an oval nose, Eagle made theirs pointed and overhanging, because they could.
It’s got to be the Lotus 79. Science is beautiful when it is simple, and the ground effect was such a simple concept put to great use with this car. It meant the rest of the car could be smooth and plain, as instead of bombarding the car with little winglets, the ground effect allowed designers to make the car one big wing.
The colour scheme alone would have been enough to make it the most beautiful car ever, but the science behind it makes it one of the most fascinating as well.
Thank you for the great writing and insight. Congrats on the new baby.
Would love to be entered for the book.
Gunnar Samson
Oh, single most beautiful car…hard to do. Gurney Eagle, Lotus 72. I could add more.
Lotus 79 from 1978.
John Player Special livery. Stunningly beautiful. Sleek. Hubba hubba.
Lotus 79
Will,
Thanks for giving this opportunity to win the book! I ll try to get it even if dont win it because it sure sounds like a fun read, but getting it over here in USA might be a bit pricey.
As for my favorite car, I have been watching F1 only for the last 11 years. So my memories of F1 cars seen racing go only that long. Though I have seen some vintage races, nothing like seeing the same beauty over and over again through the course of a season. Based on that i suppose my chance of winning is pretty feeble. But here goes my entry.
The most beautiful car in modern era accoridng to me is the Mclaren MP4-20. The car was the first one to feature a proper undercut sidepods that have since become a regular in modern f1 car designs. It was the first car to feature the trademarked Adrian Newey nose cone whose variations we see aplenty this season. In every angle it oozed aerodynamical breakthroughs and sort of rewrote the rules on how an F1 car has to be desgined going forward, aero wise. It was also brilliantly propotioned in every angle and did not look anywhere.
Just looking at the car you could say it was the fastest of the season! Pity it wasnt reliable to goive Kimi the 2005 title and lastly, who can forget Kimi’s last lap pass on Fisi in Japan when racing this beauty?
7up Jordan 191 FTW.
Jordan 191. among with others of that times. (on wich i was too young to watch and understand f1) these cars just make me feel the proper oldschool feel, and instead of thinking “modern cars are way better” this ones make you feel a lot of respect of the old times when there where extremely powerfull and risky to drive..
Whilst finding interesting everybody´s choices, I do not think any other car is comparable to the Maserati 250F. If you need convincing is that you are either too young or still learning…
Excellent blog, Mr Buxton! Always read with interest…and respect.
Felix Muelas
For me, it’s the Brawn BGP-001. I know it might only be one of last year’s cars, but it really had spirit. If a car looks fast, it generally is – and the BGP-001 looked fast. It had a certain elegance and aggression to it, one that was largely unsullied by corporate colours the way the Renault R29 was. The white with black and yellow gave the car – and therefore the team – a real identity, one that has been lacking since corproate sponsorship was started. More than anything else, the BGP-001 looked like a racing car, and so it gets my vote.
Will,
I think that the most beautiful Formula 1 cars are the most successful ones and for that reason I feel that the McLaren MP4/4 is the hands down winner. To win 15 out of the 16 races (should have been 16 only for the Gods to intervene to keep “The Old Man” happy in the first Italian Grand Prix after his death) was a feat of sporting and engineering brilliance. Coupled with the fact that it carried 2 of the best drivers ever and dominated in the year of my birth, I would have to say that there is only one winner. (Well, hopefully 2 – the car for beauty and I get the book!)
Hi Will,
As another respondent sagely replied, the most beautiful F1 cars are the most successful. In conversation with Denny Hulme some years ago, I suggested to him that a new Trojan F5000 car (the one with a snowplough front wing/radiator arrangement) was possibly the ugliest racing car of all time. His response was typical of that marvellous man. “When she crosses the line a winner,” he said, “she’ll look f*cking beautiful.”
As she did …
My nomination for the most beautiful of all single-seater racing cars has to be the Maserati 250F, not just because it is redolent of a heroic era but because its lines were almost childishly simple while at the same being so perfect.
While preparing a story for a magazine, I once visited a workshop in north London where old racing cars were repaired after being crashed. I learned that in fact because they were all hand-built by craftsmen beating aluminium sheet on old tree-stumps, no Maserati 250F was ever exactly the same as another.
The one which most people remember most fondly, I was told, was the one that Fangio drove to victory in the 1957 French GP at Rouen. On examination this car turns out to be asymetric, i.e. the left side is not a mirror image of the right.
I don’t recall exactly how many 250Fs were built, but (as the old joke goes) if production was (say) 15, it appears that only 18 of them survive. That north London workshop may have some responsibility for that imbalance.
Anyway, before I departed I was shown the rear fuel/oil tank arrangement which the shop had managed to replicate. “It’s all riveted, not welded,” I was told, “and we’ve discovered how they did it in the factory: the bloke who held the other end of the rivets is still inside the thing.”
I claim my prize, please.
Looks like the competition just got tough, people…
You’re now up against this truly brilliant post, which as responses and authors goes, will take some beating!
A week and a half left to run. And a new bench mark has just been set.
[…] can be beautiful in and of themselves, of course. Will Buxton has been enthusing over a new book, ‘Art of the Formula 1 Race Car’. Logically, it has a lovely silver and […]
Hi Will,
first of all: I want to congratulate you for the blog. I don’t comment a lot, but I do read every single post and find your personal way of writing about F1 really inspiring.
I’ve been struggling for a week to answer your question. At first I was thinking it would be a matter of remembering all the F1 cars I’ve ever seen, pick the nicest ones, and make a selection from there. Maybe I’d have ended up with 2 or 3 cars, right? Well, no…
The problem struck my as soon as I started to do my ‘list’. I wasn’t finding any truly beautiful car! Let my explain it a little bit more: is not that there weren’t beautiful cars, my problem was that I wasn’t finding one for which I would say, at fist sight, ‘I love that car’.
There were of course fabulous liveries: the Lotus John Player Special, or any black and yellow Renault (including this year’s car, bar the red bits…). There were also beautiful technical solutions that made the car beautiful by extension, like putting the engine at the back, or any of Newey’s cars (specially the last two RBR). And I could surely pick fascinating bits of cars that make for pictures that screamed ‘beauty’ to you: the front of the Brabham BT20, with those suspension arms just coming out from the cigar-shaped car, or the coke-shape at the back of the F60 seen from above. But truly beautiful cars, in the pure aesthetic sense, none.
The thing is, I look at F1 cars and I can’t forget that they’re racing cars. They’re beautiful for me because they’re racing and because they represent the work of probably the best engineers out there. I was looking for aesthetic beauty in a place were the norm is to have engineering beauty. And, for that reason, they were all beautiful to me, but none was ‘the car’ (although several were close).
So, I had to change the way of looking at it. In life, the most beautiful person in the world for you is the person you love. Once you’re in love with someone that makes that person, by definition, the most beautiful person. And that solved my problem straight away. Because there are many F1 cars I like, but only one made me cry of joy, only one gave me the best moments ever (motorsport-related, of course 😉 ). Because during those last laps of Brazil 2007, I fell in love with that car. She was beautiful, by definition. In that moment the Ferrari F2007 won the title of the ‘most beautiful F1 car ever made’.
After reading your post I immediately knew which car I would choose. The rocket-like Brabham BT 52. But to put into words why, that’s something completely different. But I will give it a try.
Thinking of one particular car as the most beautiful is something personal. It doesn’t have to be a succesful car and sometimes it doesn’t even have to look good. It’s just a gut feeling. Tiny details or personal experience can make a car special. But somehow a beatiful car is always different than others.
Right from the start of the 1983 season, the Brabham stood out from the other cars that season. It was totally different with the short angular sidepods at the back of the car, which, with the engine cover, looked like the fins of a rocket (or dart). Because the ban on ground-effect made for a whole new design, designer Gordon Murray removed the obsolete parts of the sidepods, which now, after the ground-effect era, generated more lift than suction. An at the same time got rid of some weight.
Also the white and blue colorscheme made the car look very esthetic (and fortunately not as clinically white as Eccelstone would have preferred it). Add to this the legend of the BMW turbo engine, which was an adapted 1.5 liter, 4 cylinder engine, taken from normal road cars. Rumours have it that some of them had over 100,000 kilometres on the clock before they were transfomed into 1500 hp capable Formula One engines. These are the tiny details that make this car special to me, as well as the personal experience of seeing this car (already special to me) race in front of my eyes in the Dutch GP of 1983. Although an accident ended it’s race prematurely, I was a happy boy.
Although it was not the best car of the season, and sometimes not very reliable, the car led Piquet to the first turbo-powerd world title in 1983 by using ‘rocket’ fuel in the last couple of races. Apparantly Castrol delivered some special fuel for the final races of the season, making the car. Another tiny detail, which adds to its beauty.
After the 1878 fan car, Gordon Murray had done it again. He designed something special. Just as he would do a couple of years later with the (not so successful) radical low-line Brabham BT55 or the dominating McLaren MP4/4. Or the McLaren F1 road car. Or the Rocket Roadster or …
And although I am now 43, I still have a scale model of the Brabham BT52 on a shelf in my study.
For me .. the most beautiful F1 car is a scarlet Ferrari F2008 with Marlboro Barcode and glistening Paint job and all those fins and aero mods… nothing can beat it
The most beautiful F1 car to me is the Williams FW16.
Yes it might be a tragic car, but I really wasn’t aware of that until later. Due to my childhood ignorance, and my association of Senna and McLaren I wasn’t aware he was at the wheel of a Williams when he met his untimely death.
But for me the FW16 was great, F1 in 1994 was pretty hard for watch for an 8 year old Aussie kid. So I could really only watch the Japanese and Australian rounds.
I was in Adelaide at the time of the race (went to practice on Fri and Sat, but not to the race) and the tension was crazy, everyone was on about there only being 1 point in the championship. Being led by a biased media (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR6DEz18Ng4) and after not quite understanding but watching Hill win in Japan I was definitely in the Hill camp.
The car itself was beautiful as it was just simple and streamlined, and one of the last low nose F1 cars to win a race. Add to that the distinctive Rothmans livery and to me it’s an aesthetically stunning car.