Bottom post of the previous page:
To get back on the topic of failed F1 projects, back in the kit car days of F1 we had a few..... the first two that spring to mind are Connew and LEC.I think I may have mentioned LEC but maybe that was in the Drivers who started their own teams thread.
LEC was basically David. Purley, or David's Father more specifically given he was the one with the chequebook. The car was a Mike Pilbeam designed chassis (Pilbeam had worked for BRM and from the 1970's produced a long succession of stunning Hillclimb cars powered by anything from Hart 2.8 litre stretched F2 engines through to DFV and derivative engines. He also produced a number of Sportscar chassis as well)
But back to the LEC it used the standard F1 kit car set up of DFV engine and Hewland gearbox.
The LEC only really ran for a few races in 1977, but following David Purley's horrendous crash at Silverstone, which brought his F1 career to an abrupt halt and led to the LEC project shelved.... it was originally devised for David but with him out of action.....
As for the Connew, Peter Connew was previously a designer with Surtees who decided to do his own thing and manufacture his own car c 1970. The team was pretty much a one man and a couple of mates type of set up and the car took a while to materialise. Again it was a kit car.... monocoque chassis with DFV and Hewland. The Connew PC1 did eventually materialise in 1972, It did have a unique rear suspension and that IIRC was an ongoing problem. A change of F1 regs forced the team to build a revised tub to conform. It was about as low a budget set up as could be imagined, and when Francois Migault came up with sponsorship money he became the driver. It was entered for the British GP in 1972,
and Francois took part in practice but DNS;d after a rear suspension upright was cracked.
They then had their entry refused in Germany before it actually made its only GP start ever, in Austria. It lasted until lap 25 when a rear suspension failure put it off the road and out of the race. That was its last GP.... although David Purley hired the car to run at the none championship Victory Race at the end of the season. However the car failed to run with an electrical problem sidelining it.
The car was converted to an F5000 car in 1973 but failed to qualify with a novice driver. Tony Trimmer drove it once in F5000 but again it suffered a rear suspension failure.
It then went into storage for over 40 years until it was restored with a view to Historic racing. It appeared at the Race Retro in 2018, and may have been seen at Goodwood one year. (it did as I have a pic of it there
The Connew, now restored and here shown at the 2018 Race Retro Show.
Wealthy Japanese Motor Sport enthusiasts/\/\/\/\. Hideyuki Ichihashi, Naoki Baba and Sohey Tsuchiya
