Mystery numer 12 please

[Steven Roy]

Who, what, where, when

This one should be difficult since I didn't know the car ever existed until I saw the picture

[Dare]

This one should be difficult since I didn't know the car ever existed until I saw the picture



not the hint I was looking for

[Steven Roy]

It's 4 wheel drive.  Is that the kind of hint you were looking for.

[Dare]

mcclaren M9A

69

derek bell

brands hatch

[Steven Roy]

This was meant to be difficult 

3 out of 4 

[Dare]

This was meant to be difficult 

3 out of 4 

your hint was too good,there's not that
many 4 wd f1 cars

change the track to Silverstone

you ever heard of the Ferguson P99 Climax Steven

[Steven Roy]

4 outof 4 

I have heard of the Ferguson and a few other 4 wheel drives but I didn't know McLaren had made one.  I didn't know Derek Bell hd driven for McLaren either.

[Dare]

That why F1 history never gets old,you can
learn something new every day

[Dare]

I'd never heard of this one Steven

Ferguson P99
One of the first serious attempts to field a four wheel drive Formula 1 car was the Ferguson Research company’s P99. The car made its sole Grand Prix appearance in 1961 which proved poor timing.

The car had originally been designed to accommodate a 2.5 litre V8 Coventry Climax engine but a major in the rules limited Grand Prix cars to 1.5 litres from 1961.

The P99’s engine was downgraded accordingly but this served to exaggerate one of the shortcomings of four wheel drive cars - that more power is lost in the transmission system.

It had also been conceived at a time when front-engined cars were de rigeur - but by the time it raced the rear-engined revolution was in full swing.

Another problem was the extra weight of the additional component needed to supply power to both ends of the car. But Ferguson came up with some innovative solutions to that, using magnesium alloys for the different casings to keep the weight down. At 660kg (1,456lb) it was not much heavier than that years BRM and Cooper entries.

It was entered by Rob Walker’s team for that year’s British Grand Prix at Aintree with Jack Fairman, something of a journeyman, at the wheel. Although the race was wet - conditions in which a four wheel drive car would be expected to have an advantage - Fairman ran 13th.

He pitted with electrical problems at which point the car was taken over by Stirling Moss, whose Lotus 18 had been sidelined with brake trouble. The car was doomed to disqualification because Fairman had received a push-start in the pits but Moss was impressed by the car:

In those still damp conditions I found it went like a rocket! But it also felt most odd. It was nothing like any other car I had ever driven. It made absolutely unique driving demands, but I began to appreciate that, once I could learn how to use its potential, then it really would offer great advantages.

Moss’s confidence proved justified when he took the car to victory at the non-championship Oulton Park Gold Cup in September year. But any further involvement Moss might have with the project was ended with his crash at Goodwood the following year that terminated his racing career.

The Ferguson found its way into the 1963 Tasman series and the following year it won the British Hill Climb Championship in the hands of Peter Westbury, before being retired.