Greatest designer of all time?

I'll have to go back through the archives, but I think that the very first F1 wings were chassis-mounted. I know that the '68 Ferrari 312 had one mounted well forward just behind the roll bar. Somebody (Chapman?) realized that by mounting them to the hubs, the downforce was applied directly to the wheels, and their efficiency was increased. Of course, this led to bigger and bigger wings that created enormous stresses on the spindly components, and it all came apart at the '69 Spanish GP, on the two Lotuses, I might add.

Many years ago, I read another thing about a "Chapman" design. I can't swear by its accuracy, but it makes for a good story. It was in one of those airline magazines in an article about vintage racing. One wealthy amateur described how he had purchased a well-used Lotus 49. As he was looking over the car after taking delivery, he discovered to his dismay that the roll bar was bolted directly to the top of the fuel tank!

 

I'm almost sure it didn't leave Hethel that way though - Whatever class probably added a roll-bar requirement, and some clown figured it would pass scrutineering ( & be cheap )

Ain't like that today

Cheers,
Ian
PS - Good post Thx.

 

And reminded me of another Colin tale (I believe this one to be true). Very early on, in his quest to add lightness, he figured self-tappers are lighter than nuts & bolts and tried to "eliminate" as many as possible.

I *believe* (but this is questionable) he was in the passenger seat at an early test when the car basically fell apart......

Bless him [May he RIP]

Cheers,
Ian
PS - This also apparently led to a *hatred* of self tappers from there on......[Heaven forbid you included any in any plans he saw!]

 

Rory Byrne - Past and Present

Ferrari miss him dearly!

 

I think Gordon Murray is one of the greatest designers:
In 1978 he designed the famous fan car, which won in Sweden and was banned afterwards.
The BT49 was used from 79 to 82 and won the 81 WC. He also designed the 1983 WC winning car and the McLaren MP4/4.
He also designed the Mc Laren F1 road car.

And what about Mauro Forghieri? I think his 312 cars were quite succesfull as well.

 

Colin Chapman - is clearly the best ever. Gordon Murry is up there as well. While Chapman did not alwyas actually design the car, his guidelines were established well in advance and the designer went from there. Lotus cars were extreemly fragile, and a lot of people were killed in his cars.

 

If you have ever been able to get close to a W154 GP car you will see amazing engineering design. Regardless whether he was the best the Silver Arrows cars could be considered advanced to this day. And workmanship beyond reproach.

 

This kind of goes along with his supposed philosophy about racing cars: if they didn't fall apart just after crossing the finish line, the cars were too heavily built. (Of course, too often they "fell apart" before reaching the finish line, which is why in many cases the cars either won or broke, like 1967.)

 

My response to the greatest designer of all time, and I will be a little liberal here and interpret that as meaning racecar engineer, would be Jim Hall and Smokey Yunick. I did not see that this question was limited to only F1.

Hall brought the moveable wing to racing, along with using the vacuum cleaner principal on a race car. Yunick was the first with aerodynamics and reading between the lines in rule books. He had a flat bottom care in 1967, not to mention a car that was a fractional size of the street car, but still met the template and the rule book. Because of Yunick, racing rule books had to be rewritten in all race series.

Everyone else, I do not care what race series, is merely a copy of these two. If you mentioned Chapman, that was F1. He copied Jim Hall.

Although not significant in today's racing, I would mention deDion. His rear suspension, was the only true independent suspension.

If, this conversation is limited to F1, then I would suggest only one is the best. That is not Ross Brawn or Rory Byrne who are great, but their competition was not extreme. I would suggest that Adrian Newey is the best to date in F1. His competition is Ferrari, McLaren, et al, and his designs are by far superior.

 

From the first post:

"A question from a novice: who do you think is the greatest F1 designer of all time?"

Not clear?

 

While they do, and he's certainly done some very, very good cars I put him in the same bracket as the Murrays et al mentioned above. Further, he too had the GOAT driving / testing /developing and providing feedback on his cars.

Leaving aside the OP did say F1 designer, I've gotta disagree that Colin copied anyone.... [And, I did include Jim in my comments too ] Colin probably pushed F1 design forward more than any other guy in history. As already noted, he & Jim simply thought differently to everyone else.

Gotta respectfully disagree there too. He may be the best aerodynamicist ever, but it's evolutionary progress versus the revolutions that Jim [unfortunately not in F1 ] and Colin bought to the table.

If we're going OT (with apologies to the OP), I agree Smokey is a legend in Nascar - Both good & bad - But a *designer*!? - No sir! He's probably the best at "creative rule interpretation" there's ever been but I don't think he'd have a clue when it came to "blue sky" design.

Cheers,
Ian

 

High nose revolution..........Harvey Postlethwaite is worth a mention.

IMO, a good designer is a person who was or is consistent over a decade or two and what was their greatest groundbreaking acheivement

Newey ?
Bryne ?
Barnard Carbon fibre chassis, semi auto gearbox
Head -active suspension?
Postlethwaite Hi Nose concept
Chapman - Ground effects

 

I thought Ferrari were working on a semi-automatic gearbox as early as 1979 with Scheckter and Villeneuve. That was before Barnards time with Ferrari. Who was there then Forghieri?
There is an article with that little snippet of information somewhere around here.

 

I agree with your summation of consistency over a decade... how about from 1956 - 1982?

Chapman is credited with :

Monococque design
Stressed engine as part of the suspension system
Ground effects
Side mounted radiators
Rear wing & front wing balance
Suspension design - Chapman Strut design
Torsion bar suspension
Seprately sprung aero chassis vs. chassis that caries driver engine
Aluminium honey comb construction
Adjustable wings & high mounted wings in the air streem
Semi auto gear box - 1975 Lotus (did not work out)
DVF development

and not a general design concept, but is responsible for bringing in sponsorship from non automotive areas - Imperial Tobacco gold leaf, JPS... etc...

He desigend the Vanwall back in the late 50's and then went off to start racing Lotus cars. There is a great video on you tube called the secret life of Colin Chapman... it gives a real insight to the man... deeply flawed like all of us, but was able to inspire people to do superhuman things... that is what was so remarkable...

 

Can´t argue with that, but nobody can´t argue with money. It´s easier to build a good car when you have more time (that means money) to work with.

Rudy Uhlenhaut had that money. Colin Chapman, just to name one, quite often was broke... I suppose that explains why his cars broke down so often.

 

There is a great story told by Graham Arnold... he was to meet Chapman at the airport with a new Esprit prototype... hands Chapman the keys, and he opens the door and throws his brief case in and takes off... he gets to the first round about outside the airport in Norfolk and the front suspension falls apart, and the car literally grounds to a halt in a shower of sparks. Chapman gets out and walks back to Arnold ( who was trying to follow him the company Ford Van) tells them to get out and fix the car, takes the van and races off to the factory.

once they get back to the factory he says to Arnold " Right did you tighen all the bolts this time" and gets into another car and the same thing happens!!! So Chapman is furious that he is going to be late and said to Arnold - give me the keys to your mercedes, I have to be sure I'm going to get to my meeting!

if that is not the pot calling the kettle black I dont know what is!

 

I think fast_ian had a point: Colin Chapman was the first to introduce many things in Formula 1, but many of those ideas appeared in sports-cars before (spoilers, wings, radiators in the sides of the car).

 

Good points, Chapman was a genius in his day, i think Barnard can be credited to many unique design ideas as well and some not so good too.

You alsohave to consider the constraints currentdesigners are under. In chapmans days designers had a virtual freehand at design, whereas today most designers are stifled by rules from the FIA

 

Some of his concepts had disastrous results, but I think he was a critical innovator during his time in F1.

As much credit as he deserves, his accomplishments occurred when there was still a lot of "white space" in F1. What Adrian Newey has done (which is build the best engineered cars in the era of engineering) is certainly notable. I think I agree with Chapman for old era, Newey for the new era. I give Rory Byrnes a shout-out also for his dominant stint (whether is was 'right place, right time' or not)

 

A quite few mentions about Gordon Murray and McLaren mp 4/4. IIRC Steve Nichols had something to do with MP 4/4 too..

 

The designers of today are so restricted that any single engineer that is able to outshine all the others must be great. My vote goes to Newey.

 

Much easier and less stressful in sports-cars

While I understand the above arguments, I am 100% certain that had we had an Interweb back then, the whines would have been the same;

"F1 stifles innovation"
"Let the engineers figure out the rules"
"Why did Murrays fan car get banned?"
"How about the Lotus 88" (?) - The ultimate mass damper....
...
"There's not enough overtaking"
"Aero is too important"

OK, back in the day, we had V8's, 12's and even 16's. It was fun. But I'm afraid the world moves on, and rules that made sense back then need to be tighter (probably too much tighter) today - Gotta keep the playing field level......

That's the way it is.

Good point BTW on Colin being the first to introduce "serious" sponsorship to F1 - You may hate it, but he was the first......

Cheers,
Ian

 

Actually I take back the semi auto transmission... it was a button operated clutch ... age is catching up!

 

MP4/4 was simply a rehash of the existing Barnard's car.

Personally a case of the right place at the right time, that is all, as others have already mentioned.
Pete

 

No whingeing intended just a observation