A Six-Wheel Lotus???

Today I was surfing the Internet when I found this photo




Is that a real car or its only a false??

And if this car really exist, when it ran??

its real

wow, never knew of a 6wheeled lotus...

I knew after the tyrell alot of teams decided to experiement... but I only knew of Williams who actually ran theirs on track..

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

Does anybody know if using six-wheels was actually better?

surely if it was then would still be using it now?

Williams thought the idea was good, but they applied to the rear tyres... i think one of the reasons they said was something like if it was a wet race, they would be able to run the first set of tyres as wets, then the rear tyres as slicks.

so of the six tyres, the first 4 would be wets, then the final two slicks...

i think so anyway, read it somewhere!

edit - [www.project34.co.uk]

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2007 05:08PM by chet.

yeah thats right chet they stopped using them coz of teh costs in making teh different sized tyres i think

i dont think they offered much speed advantage. i remember hearing that when tyrell tested their 6 wheeler back to back with teh normal car, the cranked teh rear wing up on the 4 wheeler to make t look as though the 6 wheeler was faster

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

i think that idea is pointless. surely the 2 rear tyres on each side of the car would be so close to each other, that the front wet tyre would just throw any water it lifted from the track onto the slick tyres, thus decreasing the overall grip of the car from all the tyres, instead of increasing it? wouldn't it just be better to use 6 wet tyres? at least then they'd all lift water and generate grip instead of 2 of the tyres (the last 2) just being made wet by the 2 in front of them?

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RIP Jules, never to be forgotten. #KeepFightingMichael

water is displaced to the side... sure there may be a little water that will remain, but i imagine its not alot and if the tyres are hot enough i shouldnt think it would have been an issue.

im not sure if williamses theory prooved to be correct though.

also the 6wheeler tyrells ran well at Monaco didnt they?

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

in 76 Tyrell came 3rd in the WCC just 12pts behind Ferrari and 3 behind McLaren, with the two drivers 3rd and 4th in teh WDC. its best race was sweden where it had a 1-2

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

this is a good link about 6 wheel F1 cars

[www.f1nutter.co.uk]

ferarri built and tested one, but no mention of Lotus. that picture could simply be one of the other 6 wheelers in a JPS livery?

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

Ferrari ran a 6-wheeler (the 312T6) with 4 at the back, this time all in a line, on a single axle as it were (obviously it wasn't, but it'll give you the idea).

Actually, better still, a linky: [8w.forix.com]. Good read, as is most of that site.

It was a passing fad all the teams dabbled in. Sort of like 4 wheel drive was in the late 60's early 70's....



"There are some pikeys there at Turn 10 putting tarmac down - what do you think of that?" - Martin Brundle

I can see the logic in running 6 wheels.... the FIA banned it though, didn't they??

hmm interesting. I have read in one of the f1racing magazines about the ultimate f1car. Where f1racing asked williams to build the ultimate f1 car and as a surprise the ultimate f1 car would have been a sixwheeler.

Jagdpanzer Wrote:
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> Sort of like 4 wheel drive was in the late 60's
> early 70's....

That caught on however and gave birth to the likes of the Impreza.

Thankfully, 6-wheel cars did not catch on as I thought all incarnations of them were fugly as hell.

Fugly it may be, but these latest things are hardly suave, are they? Most of us would prefer a good noise to a great looking car, but give me innovation over both any day.

When was the last truly innovative idea to strike an F1 designer? Twin-keel is about as good as it's been in recent years. I'd say the last was the CVT gearbox, which also didn't run in anger.

We've seen rear-engined cars being laughed at, out-board brakes, individual engines for each wheel, engines stitched together, 7 foot wings (only 5 foot at the front...), skirts and ground effects, 4 wheel drive, 4 wheel steering, enclosed wheels, the schumacher chin, that CVT gearbox, engines a stressed member of the chassis, cars made from about 8,000,000% magnesium, cars made from wood, coffins made by Colin Chapman, fan cars, computer operated suspension, perhaps traction control and turbo engines... all of it innovative to motor-racing or F1, some it even caught on. I can't think of anything in the last 15 years though.

The Mclaren extra brake pedal was pretty innovative, before it was banned.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2007 02:19PM by Mack.

imo the only decent last innovation was thr 14B and its active suspension...

I guess todays rules dont allow for much innovation though.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

The 14Bs active suspension is hardly an innovation. The system was already on several production cars before the 14B had it.

It was, again, Chapman that had the concept of active suspension.

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