The Tyrrell P34 design inspired two men - Robin Herd and Max Mosley, both of March Engineering, for wildly different reasons. Herd felt there was definite benefit from the Tyrrell’s 6-wheel concept but that the four-wheels-at-the-front concept was a blind canyon. He reasoned that much of a car’s drag was actually from the enormous rear tires used in the 70’s. Employing 4 small front tires on two rear axles (four wheel drive) would, in his mind, be more effective.

Max Mosley, who at the time was the money man at March, saw the attention the P34 had generated and instantly saw a publicity coup for the cash strapped (and sponsor poor) team. When Herd mentioned he had an idea for a 6-wheeler, Mosley pushed for it to be developed and thus, the March 2-4-0 was born.

But where the P34 was born ready to race, the 2-4-0 was born ready for little more than photo ops. When the car was originally debuted to the press it was little more than a mock up. However, having made the cover of Autosport, the company now put all their effort into having the car ready for the track.

One of the serious roadblocks to getting the car ready was the complicated gearbox. The original design called for a very strong bespoke gearbox which the company could not afford to develop. Practicality intervened and the car was redesigned to use as many components from the team’s 761 F1 car as possible. The gearbox was also scaled back and in the end was not as strong as intended in the original design.

Unfortunately, the gearbox failed after only a handful of laps, leaving the car powered by only a single axle. Due to rain and a wet track during testing, the car’s poor performance was masked. Further attempts to race the six-wheeler amounted to some practice runs during the 1977 Brazilian GP weekend and then the project was shelved - at least as far as F1 was concerned.

The 2-4-0 gained a second life of sorts in the world of hillclimbs. Driver Roy Lane found success by converting his March 771 to a 2-4-0 by using the original March gearbox and other 6 wheeler components.

Perhaps the greatest success (definitely the most lucrative) for the March 2-4-0 was far away from the track, the asphalt track at least. Mosley pulled off a coup by selling Scalextric (the company that popularized slot car racing) on the car and they produced a best selling 1/32 scale slot car of the 2-4-0.

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With every new car launch in 2008 comes another explanation from Team ‘X’ of the intricacies of their ‘revolutionary’ aerodynamic developments. Press releases and technical analysis from trade journalists are the stuff that only a PhD in physics could truly understand or appreciate. To the casual observer or even a long time follower of the sport, the placement of tiny winglets and computer designed aero-foils is about as interesting as Grade 9 calculus.

“Does it have an extra wing? -No…”

“Is it turbo-charged with an afterburner? - No…”

“Does it have an engine for each wheel? - No…”

“Then what makes it different?”

Probably nothing as far as anyone outside of F1 is concerned.

It’s often been said that if the paint schemes on modern F1 cars were stripped off, most fans would not be able to tell the difference between a Ferrari and a BMW. New ideas are quickly copied (or stolen) by the other teams’ designers and eventually car design becomes a very homogeneous genetic soup. Nowadays, its more evolution through cloning than by innovation.

It wasn’t always so stale. In the 60’s and 70’s there was an explosion of new ideas and ‘outside the box’ thinking. Lotus designer Colin Chapman introduced both the monocoque chassis and ground effects to grand prix racing. The designs proved so successful that they are de rigueur to F1 design more than a quarter century later. However, equally creative ideas like four-wheel drive, and dual chassis’ proved to be evolutionary dead-ends and were abandoned. Darwin would be proud.

Standing out as the ultimate in new thinking was a car so wildly different from what had come before that it is, even today, an instantly recognizable icon of 70’s racing - the Tyrrell P34. Designed by Derrick Gardiner, the idea of four small front wheels instead of the normal sized two was envisioned as a way to reduce the drag on the car (smaller tires created a smaller frontal area) while maintaining the same amount of rubber making contact with the track.

The car’s unveiling in 1976 was greeted with gasps of astonishment by the press and it is still regarded as one of the most radical cars ever produced in the history of Formula 1. More astonishing is that this apparent albatross in design was competitive and successful straight away.

Building on a string of points scoring finishes and podiums, the Tyrrell Team quickly achieved the perfect race result when teammates Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depallier finished 1-2 in the 1976 Swiss Grand Prix. Sadly, this early glory was the high water mark for the car and it never won another race. Tire development on the car’s tiny 10-inch wheels proved too costly for the Goodyear Tire Company and the entire concept eventually had to be abandoned in 1977. The FIA killed the 6-wheel concept for good in 1983 when it mandated that race cars could only have four wheels.

Still, the P34 has remained an icon to F1 enthusiasts. It’s a testament to the adventurous thinking F1 used to embrace. Sadly, it also a reminder that as the rules have become more comprehensive and restrictive, innovation has slowly been squeezed out of the sport.

The P34 is not the last word on radical experimentation however. Before the door was shut on 6-wheel race cars, two other notable attempts were made to harness the power of six; the March 2-4-0 and the Williams FW07B/08B.

Stay tuned for Success on 6 Wheels Pt II

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