Subaru in F1 ?

I was reading the latest Drive Performance mag over the weekend, and found out for the first time that Subaru had actually had a crack at Formula 1 before switching gears to focus on the WRC.

http://www.driveperformance.subaru.com/version4_3/formula_one.asp

This was quite a surprise for me, having been an F1 fan since the '70s. I suppose it didn't help that the effort only lasted about 6 months, and they never qualified for an actual race. But when you think about, a boxer engine in an F1 car offers all sorts of interesting possibilities, especially with regard to aero.

Stuart.

 

i wonder what it would sound like.

 

there was a thread about this when the magazine came out about a month ago

 

Got a link ? I did a search but got nothing. It's the kind of thing I expected to find an existing thread on.

Cheers,
Stuart.

 

my bad thought it was a thread, just a post in a thread.

http://www.mnsubaru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20820

 

No worries. I had seen that thread a while ago, but stopped reading it at around post #13. Looks like I've got some catching up to do.

Stuart.

 

Crazy.

I wasn't aware that the motor was an integral part of the chassis (like nowadays) back then.

The more I read/hear about pre-80s engineering, the more I'm impressed.

 

I always feel like some of the most compelling engineering feats were performed before the 80's. Hell, even before a better part of the 70's.

Think about it... They put a man on the moon, created stealth air craft, etc. all in the 60's.

The only thing we've done in modern times, engineering wise, seems to be making old things better rather than discovering new. At least from the mechanical engineering side.

I guess the new frontier is bio-medical and comp-sci :dunno: ?

Sorry about the hi-jack...

 

Exactly.

There wasn't a niftly little thing called pocket calculators back then. Hell, the navigation computers on the old Apollo missions were way less powerful then the laptop I'm typing this post on. :eek4:

<--- wannabe engineer that ended up as a quasi-actuary/quasi-programmer :laugh:

 

i blame it on the druqs

 

I had to edit that, since you were waaaaay overestimating the power of the computers in the Apollo missions.

I remember doing the Cape Canaveral tour a few years ago. I was absolutely stunned by how primitive the launch site for even the Mercury stuff was. They had a metal ring bolted into the ground, and four guy lines holding the rocket upright. Mission Control was a shed not nearly as far away as you might expect it to be, and it seemed like the launch itself involved one poor sod being shoved out the door with a taper, running over to the rocket, lighting the blue touch paper, and then legging it back to the shed as quickly as he could before it went whoosh.

Anybody else remember the tales of NASA buying up all the old IBM 386/486 laptops they could find a few years ago ? These were the cream of the crop for shuttle missions, and they'd started breaking at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, the proprietary software wouldn't run on anything else, so they were stuck, and running out of spares.

I think I had an actual point to make. Maybe it'll come back to me later. Oh, yeah, I remember. Even the Space Shuttle was designed in the late '60s/early '70s, and the whole fleet is scheduled to be retired in 2010. This is the most complex flying machine ever built by man, and we haven't even been arsed to figure out a better one since. Not to mention that the entire program was designed around "Thou shalt use the Apollo launch pads, 'cos we can't be bothered to build new ones." That's why it has to rotate upside down after it takes off; the launch pads point the wrong way !

Should we kick off a heated debate yet over the moon landings being real or fake ?

Stuart.

 

Ya, most tube framed race cars use the motor as a stressed member. It'd be a waste of weight and space to not use the motor in such a fashion..



It was a cool idea, but it didn't pan out. The ideal configuration for a boxer motor is a flat 6 anyways...

 

just think what the future out come of subaru would have been if subaru made it big in F1 instead of WRC. do you think they still would have made the sti? or would the subaru sports car everyone loves. would have been a base around the svx body style. thats kinda cool to think about. and on top of that would there be some rwd subaru's? its kinda cool to think about.

 

Yup, that's the same reason Porsche built a V-10 for the Carerra GT instead of using a boxer engine like most of their cars.