Derek Gardner/Tyrell Six Wheeler

[herr_oberst]

Designer Of Six-Wheeled Tyrrell F1 Race Car Dies

RIP to one of the great car designers in the golden era of F1.

(IIRC, the reason that Depallier was driving without the cowl at Monaco, it was because he couldn't see the front wheels - very important at a tight street circuit. If you look on Google images, you see an evolution of this car, the early ones had no cowl windows, the one shown here has huge ones, and there were a few iterations in between.)



Edit. For some reason my image isn't loading.

[drcoastline]

I remember seeing this car on tv back in the 70's. Was it ever competitive? What was the extra set of wheels supposed to do?

[herr_oberst]

It won one race, I believe; the small front wheels were for reduced frontal area, doubling them up provided the same grip as larger wheels and tires.

[Noah930]

I just came across a Hot Wheels model of the car in my house the other day.

Regarding it's competitiveness, it was (ironically unfortunately for Tyrrell) competitive in its first season IIRC. That led to the rule the following year that all race cars need to have 4 wheels. One of the innovations (like movable wings, aerodynamic devices mounted to wheel hubs, sucker cars, etc) that was too successful for its own good.

[herr_oberst]

Tyrrell P34 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ahh, a little bit of Wikipedia to help set the record straight-ish.

[TheMentat]

I recall reading some driver comments about how unnerving it was to watch the front tires at speed down the straight. The small diameter led to extreeme deformation due to the centripetal forces.

[kycarguy 935]

I remember seeing this car race at the Long Beach Grand Prix. I have some pictures somewhere.

[URY914]

[URY914]

[URY914]

[Reg]

Certainly one of the neatest F1 cars, as well as one of the ugliest!

What an era though. RIP, we'll never forget that car.

[URY914]

[URY914]

[URY914]

[URY914]

[URY914]

How about a 6-wheel drift....

[drcoastline]

Great info thanks.