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 Owning an authentic Formula 1 car from the 1960s is a privilege
afforded the few. Owning and driving one is an experience for even
fewer. But what if you could own such a car for a fraction of the cost
and drive it with the relative impunity of not having to worry about
balling up a million dollar, irreplaceable piece of history?
Ian Gray builds the F1-67 just for that purpose. Priced at £40,000 £45,000 (about $64,000 $72,500 at today's exchange rates), the F1-67 mimics Honda's iconic RA273
F1 car from 1967 (though the shape is similar enough to other makes of
the era), but substitutes a fresh GM 5.3-liter LS V8 in place of Honda's
exotic, race-only 3.0-liter V-12. Making around 320hp, the 1,430-pound
track-day toy has plenty of power. And just think that most engine
components are available at any local parts store.
We can fully understand Gray's inspiration. "It came about because I
always liked that era of race cars and I didn't have the million dollars
you need for an original," he said. "So I made the effort to make my
own from scratch." He finds the first of the 3.0-liter F1 cars of 1967 and 1968, before wings and slicks became de rigeur, as the most natural to emulate: big engines in the back and clean lines all around.
 While the original was made of some very small diameter tubing as the
cars only needed to last a few hours, Gray welds together 118 beefy,
two-inch diameter, laser-cut tubes plus a handful of flat plates for the
bulkheads to build the chassis. "It's an incredibly stiff chassis,
which you can probably tell from looking at the scale of the tubes and
the diagonals and the braces," he said. "It's never going to stress.
It's never going to fracture. It's never going to crack and fall apart
on you halfway around a corner which was one of the big issues they had
to run with at the time. That chassis should last forever. It is
thoroughly over built for that reason."
Photos courtesy Ian Gray
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Re: Authentic 1960s Formula 1 Experience - Fraction of the Cost
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