1983 Ford C100

[lemansfan]

Looking for any Information over the 1983 Ford C 100 ,which is running in the Group C / GTP Series . Is Bryan Wingfield still the Owner of the Car or is it sold ???
Thank you for any Information !!

Regards: lemansfan

[Grandslammer]

Can't offer any information sorry but I can share with you the only (and not very good) pics I have of a C100,taken at Thruxton circuit in 1983

[nj1052]

Hi there

Yes, Bryan Wingfield does still own the car and it ran with Group C Racing last year at The Nurburgring Oldtimer being driven by David Mercer who was making a bit of a comeback after a break from racing for a while.

If you take a look at www.groupcracing.com and go to the Race Reports there a few photos of the car there.

Cheers

Nigel

[Alex Hodgkinson]

Nice pictures Grandslammer.

All I know about the C100 is as follows:

The Orange car pictured was one of the 1982 works cars, was bought by a team called Peer Racing, fitted with a 3.3L DFL instead of the 3.9L powerplant. It ran in Thundersports in 1983 and also at Le Mans.

The David Mercer car was a still born factory (or Zakspeed?) development for 1984. Never took part in a race in period due to the Ford team pulling out.

Zakspeed did however continue to develop the C100 into the C1/4 (3.3 DFL) and C1/8 (1.8l Capri turbo) which both ran until the late 80's in various series, mainly the DRM.

[KA]

Originally Posted by Alex Hodgkinson

Nice pictures Grandslammer.

All I know about the C100 is as follows:

The Orange car pictured was one of the 1982 works cars, was bought by a team called Peer Racing, fitted with a 3.3L DFL instead of the 3.9L powerplant. It ran in Thundersports in 1983 and also at Le Mans.

Peer Racing was the name Martin Birrane's cars were usually entered under- presumably this is the car that's in the collection at Mondello. There's a Zakspeed version there as well
http://archive.dailysportscar.com/su...ellomuseum.htm
http://www.mondello.ie/contact/?id=133

[John Turner]

Since this appears to be a request for the car's history, rather tha what it might do, or has done in historic racing, I'm moving this to the Motorsport History forum.

It may also be a good idea to develop this into a proper chassis history for these cars for the Chassis History Archive

[Jesper OH]

Originally Posted by Alex Hodgkinson

Zakspeed did however continue to develop the C100 into the C1/4 (3.3 DFL) and C1/8 (1.8l Capri turbo) which both ran until the late 80's in various series, mainly the DRM.

I thought the names were reversed, i.e. C1/4 for the 4-cylinder turbo and C1/8 for the V8 Cosworth engined version, although not absolutely sure.

Jesper

[chunterer]

Such a shame that the project got canned in 82. Who knows what these cars might have achieved with continual backing and development.

Stuart Turner didn't see any future in the project. Now whether that was because he felt Boreham/Weissach had no chance against the 956 or whether he really did feel as he said at the time that Ford's sporting marketing was better served in rallying and touring cars is worth exploring imo?

[Nordic]

Its hard to say now, the C100 was never really allowed to develop as the 956 did.

Maybe with another year and some decent privateers running them the history books would be different and the C100 could have done for Ford what the GT40 did.

It cant have been a easy program to run, istr the cars where being built by 2 different teams at the same time, (zakspeed and Thompson I think, maybe Hesketh as well) the internal politics where a nightmare. De Cadanet was also involved I think.

There was also a car built by Lola that raced the year before in 1981, a kind of pre grp c car.

http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2767847.html

My lasting memory is of the C100 was 82 at Brands, 2 C100's leading the first lap side by side before it all went west and one ended up against the armco. Who knows if that crash did not happen, maybe the C100 could have beaten the 956 and Lancia and the program may have had more life.

http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2780270.html
http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2780271.html

Whatever the reasons the rally program also faded away and it was only the RS500 that kept the blue oval in Autosport

[Dan Rear]

Wasn't the Lola the T600, and quite successful too in IMSA with various engines.

I think the C100's problem would have been the engine. The DFL was outclassed by the Porsche motor on the power/economy scale, and when the Turbo version came along later, with TLD's Tiga, it was very unreliable. Sad to say, I fear Turner got the decision right.

[Nordic]

It would be odd for Lola to be involved with 3 early grp C cars, his own the T600 series, the Aston Nimrod so maybe I have mixed the Ford with the Nimrod?

For sure no matter how good the chassis is if the engines wrong it would never have worked, the 956 motor, while not new was clearly a better bet then the DFL.

[Alex Hodgkinson]

My understanding of the 1981 car is that it was a development car run before the GrC regulations were finalised.

The biggest physical change that had to be made to the car for 1982 was making it taller to cope with the stipulated minimum height to the top of the windscreen. Incidentally the Nimrod also had to be altered to cope with this rule. There's was a less graceful solution by means of an additional flip up at the top of the screen - looking rather similar to a taxi sign!

I'd tend to agree that the project was probably binned at the correct time. With significantly less race power than the 956's it would've taken turbocharging or even possibly an entirely new engine to get on par. In my mind the chassis holds no questions, after all if the project had continued I'm sure Mr.Southgate would've stayed in the Ford drawing office...

[lemansfan]

Thanks everybody for your Help .The most important thing was ,to find the new Team Location from Bryan Wingfield Racing , and I found it .

1981 C 100 # 01 build by Thompson - Gomm
1982 C 100 # 02 build by Hesketh
1982 C 100 # 03 build by Thompson / zakspeed
1982 C 1oo # 04 build by Thompson / zakspeed
1982 C 100 # 05 build by Thompson / zakspeed

If I have more Information about the 1983 C 100 I will post it .

Regards :lemansfan

[templer]

Hi Guys,

perhaps I can add a bit more infos about the C100 as I have got some infos for my group c book project.
The car that appeared in the group 6 race in 1981 was the first version of the C100 designed by Len Bailey at a time where the group c regulations were very vague and not detailed initialized by Karl Ludvigsen. The car featured a sheet aluminium monocoque on a base of a Tyrell F1 monocoque and was powered by 3,3 l Ford Cosworth engine.After some political problems Len Bailey left the project and the whole development was transferred to Ford Cologne where the former Porsche employee Eberhard Braun together with six guys analized the car. The car didn't fulfil the new group c regulations in the main dimensions and had weak points almost everywhere. The chassis was too weak, the rear and front subframes too, the suspension didn't work cause the geometry of the rocker arms where wrong and so on. The car was desribed as undriveable.
The problem was a lack of time and Mr. Braun was a specialist in tubular frames but not in monocoques. He and his team did some stress analysis stiffed the monocoque and the subframe, reworked the suspension and created a totally new aerodynamics with some advanced features in the underbody design. After the things they had heard on the new 3,9 DFL Cosworth engine it should be better in terms of fuel consumption as the Porsche. The reality was the engine was down on power ( not reaching the official 540 bhp), need more fuel and showed terrible vibrations caused by the flat plane crankshaft. Nobody of the Ford officials tried something against Cosworth. After a few test miles the car started at a test race in the DRM and then in Monza not really showing a great performance. After the Monza race K. Ludvigsen moved the whole further development from Cologne to the Zakspeed Racing at Niederzissen. Peter Ashmore asked Tony Southgate to have a look at the car. He realized still weak areas in the chassis and subframe stiffness and the suspension. He did a new alu honeycomb monocoque ( built by T.C. Prototypes), designed new subframes and a revised suspension. This car was about 2,5 seconds faster occuring the pole position at the Nürburgring.
Ludvigsen wanted a totally new car for 1983 powered by a turbo version of the DFL engine. As a race team Gordon Spice was engaged and Tony Southgate did the new design with an intensive wind tunnel work at Imperial College. The car showed some features of the later Jaguars like horizontal skirts at the lower edge of the sidepods. A totally new underbody with short tail and a twin element rear wing working in interaction with the venturi tunnels were the main features. The chassis was a honeycomb aluminium monocoque built by T.C Prototypes. The car did some tests at Paul Ricard with the old 3,9 DFl engine and showed impressive speed. After Ludvigsen left Ford and Stuart Turner did his job he immidiately cancelled the whole project.
Zakspeed's Helmut Barth revised the MK-II cars by moving the water radiator from the sidepods to the front, developing a new rear aero and fitted it with inline 4 cylinder Zakspeed engine called C1/4. A version with a V8 Cosworth engine was also run ( C1/8) mainly in the DRM. Success was lot really impressive.
At the whole Ford project there was too much politics and rivalry between Ford England and Ford germany. A work of a whole sports department with the will to succeed never existed.

I hope this helps a bit.

Kind regards

Markus

[Thundersports]

Can anyone shed any light on the Hesketh car?

[lemansfan]

http://www.racingsportscars.com/chas...e/C100-02.html

Here you can find the complete Race History from the C 100 # 02 .

[Thundersports]

So was there a connection between Hesketh C100 and Hesketh F1?

[PeterMorley]

This is what I found about C100s when someone was asking about the Wingfield car:

1980 Len Bailey had designed a 3 liter Group 6 car
Ford took over the project to develop the 3.9 liter DFL using the chassis during 1981.
Chassis (01) was sheet aluminium, built by John Thompson and the car assembled by Maurice Gomm.

When the rules for Group C were finalised (it started in 1982) Bailey designed a definitive sheet aluminium chassis, but he fell out with Ford and left before it was finished.
That chassis (02) was built by Hesketh Engineering.

Meanwhile Alain de Cadenet was authorised to build a chassis (03), that was built from aluminium honeycomb by John Thompson - this was a much better second generation car, 70Kg lighter only using the original cars uprights.

Ford then take over both cars and supply 02 to Lothar Pinske of Ford Cologne and 03 to Zakspeed.
Both do pretty badly.
Zakspeed hire Tony Southgate to develop their car (03) and they have Thompson build two more honeycomb chassis cars (04 sold to Martin Birrane & 05 for themselves).
Cologne withdraw their car (02) and use it as a test bed for turbo DFL which was never raced.

End of 1982 Gordon Spice contracted to build & drive a Southgate designed, TC prototypes built honeycomb car for 1983 = chassis 83C100-01. This was meant to have the turbo DFL but was tested with a normal one.
Apparently they also started a second chassis which was never finished (83C100-02)

March 1983 Stuart Turner takes over from Karl Ludvigsen as Ford Europe's director of motorsports and cancels the programme to save embarassment!

Wingfield's car is the last Spice built one (83C100-01) that never raced, e.g. the second generation of honeycomb car - its first race was a historic Group C race in 2007!

It is the car that was converted into Supervan 2 in 1984.
In 1995 Supervan 2 was upgraded to Supervan 3 with an HB and Benetton gearbox etc.
Supervan 3 was retired in 2001 by which time it had lost the HB (had a Pro-Sports 3000 engine).
Supervan 3 was part of Ford's heritage collection, but somehow Bryan was able to restore C100 back to original unraced C100 form - presumably involving the unfinished chassis 83C100-02, assuming Ford didn't let him destroy the Supervan.

Location of the cars:

C100-01 apparently converted in to a 1982 spec. car. - probably the Ford Cologne car (C100-02) = unknown location

Zakspeed should still have one car (C100-03 or 05)
Martin Birrane has one car (C100-04)
Rosso Bianco had one car (C100-03 or 05) - presumably in Holland (Louwman)

Then the one or two 83C chassis which became Supervan went to Bryan Wingfield.

[templer]

With the Wingfield car your are not right. I have asked the owner baout this car and the difference in the front cover compared to the car which was tested in Paul Ricard. Here is the answer:

Dear Markus

My Mk3 C100 is chassis No: C100 - 002. The car tested at Paul Ricard was
C100 - 001.

Car Number 2 was never assembled because Ford cancelled the project due to
the inability of Cosworth to supply the Turbo engine in time for Le Mans.
All the parts for number 2 including the monocoque were crated and put into
storage. I obtained them in 1996 and completed the build in 2004.

We had the original centre body section which had been shipped to Zakspeed
and was found in the cellar of the Rosso-Bianco Museum in Frankfurt, but had
to re-make the moulds for the front and rear using copies of the original
Tony Southgate drawings. When we started testing the car we discovered it
had a serious over-heating problem. Tony Southgate put me in contact with
Peter Ellery who was the aerodynamisist on the Toyota, Audi and Bentley Le
Mans cars. With his help the nose profile and radiator air intakes were
revised and the problem was solved. So, yes, well spotted the nose is not
the same as that on car 01.

Kind regards

Markus

[Thundersports]

So who were Hesketh Engineering?
Thanks chaps

[templer]

Hi Thundersports,

according to my informations from the former boss of Ford Motorsports Germany
Eberhard Braun (who was project leader of the C100 at Germany under the direction of Lothar Pinske) Hesketh built 8 monocoques which were improved ( additional aluminium sheets for better torsional stiffness , but same basic dimensions) versions of the first Len Bailey designed monocoque. All 8 were sent to Ford Cologne, but don't ask how much cars were really built on this monocoques or where are they now. I don't know it.
Zakspeed Racing used later a new designed aluminium honeycomb monocoque that was built by John Thompsons company T.C. Prototypes.

Kind regards

Markus

[PeterMorley]

Originally Posted by templer

With the Wingfield car your are not right. I have asked the owner about this car and the difference in the front cover compared to the car which was tested in Paul Ricard. Here is the answer:

Dear Markus

My Mk3 C100 is chassis No: C100 - 002. The car tested at Paul Ricard was
C100 - 001.

Car Number 2 was never assembled because Ford cancelled the project due to the inability of Cosworth to supply the Turbo engine in time for Le Mans.
All the parts for number 2 including the monocoque were crated and put into
storage. I obtained them in 1996 and completed the build in 2004.

We had the original centre body section which had been shipped to Zakspeed
and was found in the cellar of the Rosso-Bianco Museum in Frankfurt, but had
to re-make the moulds for the front and rear using copies of the original
Tony Southgate drawings. When we started testing the car we discovered it
had a serious over-heating problem. Tony Southgate put me in contact with
Peter Ellery who was the aerodynamisist on the Toyota, Audi and Bentley Le
Mans cars. With his help the nose profile and radiator air intakes were
revised and the problem was solved. So, yes, well spotted the nose is not
the same as that on car 01.

Kind regards

Markus

Markus

That is pretty much what I thought, the chassis from car 01 was used to make the Ford Supervan and it did not make sense that he would destroy the van to make the C100, which is why I said they presumably used the unfinished chassis 02.

I think he did use some parts from the Supervan, for example the Benetton engine & gearbox from the van were sold off when they fitted the V6 engine.

Best wishes
Peter
p.s. Thundersports, after F1 they did continue to do some race car work at Easton Neston (I saw a Lotus 72 at a Historic race at Oulton Park that had some input from them - that would have been around the time of the C100 project) so Hesketh Engineering was possibly their later operating name.

[Nordic]

During the early 80's Hesketh was also making his own Motorbikes so the Easton Neston site was fairly active.

They also had a hand in the IBEC, Ian Braceys sportscar that raced in 1981 before becoming the IBEC Cobra and racing in Thundersports.

BTW Hesketh Engineering is the name of a steel company formed in 1965. very confusing if 2 companies had the same name! http://www.heskethengineering.co.uk/
I very much doubt they were involved with the C100.

[Thundersports]

Thanks Peter/Nordic/Templar I shall make my Uncle who was involved with Lotus then Hesketh in F1 aware of this in case he didn't know.

[fausto]

Originally Posted by Nordic

During the early 80's Hesketh was also making his own Motorbikes so the Easton Neston site was fairly active.

They also had a hand in the IBEC, Ian Braceys sportscar that raced in 1981 before becoming the IBEC Cobra and racing in Thundersports.

BTW Hesketh Engineering is the name of a steel company formed in 1965. very confusing if 2 companies had the same name! http://www.heskethengineering.co.uk/
I very much doubt they were involved with the C100.

"Hesketh Engineering" was operating as JQF Engineering (JQF standing for John Quentin Fisher, one of the original Hesketh senior team members), IIRC they had a part in the building of the very first Tiga GC 284 (the Roy Baker Ford Turbo engined car, the "small" Tiga) and the Royale RP40 (after US Argo agent Hugh Kleinpeter split with Marquart&Jordan company and went his own way). IIRC later they ran some FINA-backed programs in UK touring car racing, a Production Saloon M3 (probably the very first European car using lead-free fuel) and a Group A Sierra Cosworth...