Who was/is your favourite F1 designer

[cds_uk]

There have been loads of threads on fav cars so i thought it might be interesting to see your opinions on the guys who designed them, as i am 35 i was lucky enough to see the 70`s and 80`s cars in all their glory, no shocks when i say Maurice Phillipe, Gordon Murray, Tony Southgate are some of my favourite designers, they all drew lovely cars, here are a few that spring to mind, M P - Lotus 72, Tyrrell 008/ G M - lots of Brabhams in Martini and Parmalat liverys/ T S - Arrows A2/ Ossella FA1E. As for today, obviously the rules are that much more restricting and most of the cars look very familiar, having said that Adrian Newey tried something that looked a bit different this year, seems to have worked aswell.

[maximus]

Who designed those beautiful Brabhams from the 70's? Was it Gordon Murray? He would have to be my favourite if it was.

[ensign14]

Murray, definitely. Never designed an ugly car. (Except the Brabham in 1984, and that was down to the ginormous wing.)

[Knowlesy]

Gordon Murray has to be a favourite, with his most beautiful work being the 1986 lowline Brabham.

Newey and Head worked well together and made some stunningly beautiful cars as well.

And Barnard has to be in there on the basis of the Ferrari of 1989 and the 1997 Arrows.

And I haven't gone past the eighties yet......there are many great designs.

[Rich R]

i always liked dr harvey poselthwaite. even in the later years at tyrell when the team had no money he would come up with a neat car, with innovations like the high nosed f1 car and the (dreaded) x-wings, and he nurtured new talent like mike gascoigne. plus earlier on he had been responsible for the hesketh 308, wolf wr1, and the ferrari 126c2. a pretty good back catalogue of work there.

[BSchneiderFan]

Colin Chapman.

[GolddustMini]

chapman

[Razor]

Anything from BMW/Williams is good.

[Rennen]

'Chunky'

[Glen]

The one guy who brought about the extreme F1 culture - everything absolutely on the limit, creatve interpretation of the regs and beautiful cars to boot. Chapman. Others have emulated his ideas - I have a lot of respect for Gordan Murray for example - but you've got to give it to Colin Chapman for pushing the limits so very far in the first place.

[Kicking-back]

Weren't very reliable though, were they?

[Glen]

Part of the ethos - make it so it falls apart just over the finish line. Extreme engineering. He didn't always judge it just so though, I agree.

Obviously you are referring to the team which currently epitomises this approach - they need to take a leaf from Ferrari's book and pull off the crazy trick of making extreme cars AND reliable cars at the same time! Actually, I do think that Rory Byrne and the modern Ferrari team as a whole should be mentioned in this discussion, because they have most successfully advanced the designer's art by means of management - all those resources acting in concert and to maximum effect. In time perhaps McLaren can do the same.

[Rennen]

Chunky's genius was applying his 'Aero' industry knowledge and principles to cars. His type 25 chassis tub stunned the competition, several of whom bought his previous years winning type 24 tube spaceframe cars and found them obsolete at the first race of the season by his framless 25...CC was also a crafty old devil too!

Putting the radiators in side pods to have a more aero nose and centralise weight on the type 72 was such a simple solution that must have made other designers kick themselves!

The 78/79 'Wing car' was pure state of the art machine...image the smug fun he must have enjoyed when he applied that simple Aero principle.

How he would loved todays cars!

[Kicking-back]

Yes, the Scuderia certainly set new benchmarks for reliability.

[BSchneiderFan]

I have a lot of time for John Barnard, too.

[Skam85]

Who did this year's minardi?

[BSchneiderFan]

And what colour crayon did they use?

[chris bailey]

Having worked for Mr Chapman and Rory Byrne and alongside (albeit briefly) Adrian Newey, my own opinion is that you can't really say who's best. They are all good, even brilliant in their own way. Rory Byrne gets the least credit for his achievements, which is a shame. In the contemporary and rather narrow field of F1 his results are exceptional. However, given the vast resources available to Ferrari/McLaren, both in technology and personnel, who's to say how much of an individual's contribution counts to the overall result? My vote for best ever? Derek Bennett. Designing, manufacturing (literally) and driving (as fast as Brian Redman) some of the most effective (and sometimes beautiful - B16) racing cars ever. A B19 Chevron is top of my all-time wish list. Just wish he'd been around a little longer.

[Kicking-back]

Good point about Rory Byrne getting little credit for his great achievements.

I wonder if that's because Ross Brawn usually fronts up to steal his thunder?

[Glen]

It is a characteristic of the Ferrari operation that the seams between departments and individuals are much harder to see than is the case elsewhere - Schumacher's input flows into Byrne's contribution, and that is impossible to separate from (for example) Bridgestone's contribution, or from the engine team's work etc. This is their strength, so it may well be fair to say that the real credit lies with the personnel that enable that team spirit to be so robust and complete - maybe Ross Brawn and Jean Todt deserve as much credit as any.

[Super Tourer]

I used to like John Barnard's cars. The only real issue was when he migrated down the grid, but having been used to a diet of Ferrari budgets and resources, the cars he produced for Arrows were beautiful, but too complex and expensive to run - for a team at that level.

[Andrew Kitson]

Rory - proud to be a friend and to have worked alongside him at Royale 28 years ago when I was the lad 'gofer' and he was just starting out as a designer.

He is infact trained as an industrial chemist, hence his understanding of tyre technology. He is also a long time aerodynamics expert, being world champion in the early 70s at designing and flying 'hand launch' glider models. A flair for mechanics and his interest in engineering lead to spannering the FF car of Roy Klomfass in 1973 when they both came to the UK from South Africa. A job at Royale followed.

From Royale he went to Toleman in F2 in '78, Toleman went F1 and then morphed into Benetton where he designed the Schumacher title winning cars, Michael wanted him to go to Ferrari with him, the rest is history.
An incredible record of Championship winning cars. Seems strange that this year's Ferrari is off the pace. The first non 'mainly Byrne designed' one for many years.

No one in F1 has ever worked harder IMO. I went to see him one Boxing Day to have a beer, when he was at Benetton. No time he said, straight after lunch back to the factory to work on the new car, he had done the same thing the day before - Christmas.

Enjoy your retirement Ror.

[richard_sykes]

To be honest there job is not to make pretty cars, they got to go arounda track fast.

Colin Chapman or John Barnard (in times gone past).

Adrain Newey and Rory Bryne (today).

Ps.Andrew, thats a pretty good to have worked with him

[ASCII Man]

Who made the Vanwalls that Moss drove with?
Those looked like nice little cars IMO!

[Knowlesy]

Vanwall probably made them.

As for who designed them........no idea........someone by the name of Maddock?

Did Chapman have a hand in Vanwalls as well?