Niki Lauda and the 308 GT4

Nice pics. And NO - he wasn't involved in development of the GT4. He was still racing for BRM at the USA Grand Prix on 7th October 1973 and was still to sign a contract with Ferrari. The 308GT4 was launched at the Paris Motor Show on 12th October 1973. Hardly time for Lauda to have much input even if he signed for Ferrari the day after his last BRM race!

 

Creative marketing by Chinetti - don't blame him

 

I think he would have had certainly had an in put with the mk2 .
He ask for example for the door mirrors to match his Sunday racing car .
What we ( GT 4 aficionados) really need to see is the suspension differences , the shock settings , ARB sizes , ride hight between the Mk 1 and Mk 2 s .
Plus any other mechanical tuning differences with the engines . I don’t mean Hp , but slight changes re gearshift link ages , brake servo s to give it more feel improve on it from a Lauda aspect .
After all he was given one as his daily and the lines between his day job criticising his Sunday ride ( working with techs) at Marenello must have been blurred surly?
You know sitting down having lunch with them , personnel changing , word on the grape wine , none of this woke corporate BS affecting large companies these days .
At Ferrari in the 70 s it’s was an open door culture with the “ old man “ wondering about every day …..information and criticisms from Nikki would have reached the right people to affect change back then .

 

When the actor ( a German guy ) made this film , a year before shooting started he spent a lot of time with Nikki , interviews etc to get the Austrian accent , mannerisms etc etc .
Also the producers spent time and Nikki had there blessing and assisted with historical accuracy.

Accepting the above ^

I just can’t see Nikki driving a Mk1 ( which he had no input from a time line pov = agreed ) and keeping quiet not criticising it , or indeed ending up NOT having an input into the mk2 .

 

On a similar vein the road test team and current F1 drivers ( inc the reserve) had an input with the 348 chassis .
Running round Mugello mindful of lap times of the outgoing 328 they set up the handling of the 348 .
By then they didn’t do mk1 and mk2 s etc , they constantly evolved a car through out it life .Making changes as and when .Still do btw .So the first irritations of the 348 , about 1990 Enzo had previously signed off ( his last car btw before passing ) the journos who tested it got into trouble with the handling on the limit .
A few spun it on the invitation track day launch .
Subsequently when the Honda NSX was launched they couldn’t spin it as it had a myriad of nannies .
The 348 was a ( still is ) a drivers car and needs skill .

By 1992/93 they changed the position of the rear pick upper wishbone point , lowering it a few mm ,lengthened the upper arm , widened the track F +R to give the drive more feel at the point , more warning it was going into oversteer.
This was as direct result of journos who couldn’t drive slagging off the break away point .

They did other subtle changes yr on yr .

So returning to Nikki involvement ……I just can’t see how he wasn’t involved .
Schumacher was involved with the F1 gearbox and 360 .

As I said today with woke , H+S , corporate BS …..it would be interesting to see if Lewis is any way involved with road car development. I very much doubt it , the organisation is just too large with silos of managers and it would be difficult for Lewis to get through.

But back in Nikki s day ….very easy and I am sure he didn’t just bite his tongue after a road car drive .