How things have changed...

[cameraman]

Here is a great example of why we can't go back to the way it was. This is the Renault RS01, the first turbine powered F1 car running at Donington Park in 1977.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Renault_RS01_Arnoux_2007.jpg

And here we have the design process for that very car:

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuN-JdBCUAEVsuM.jpg:large


Seriously, once the tech genie is out of the bottle there really is no way to get it back in.

[Kiwifan]

Where do you get these photos? Awesome! :)

[cameraman]

Wikipedia and Stuart Dent's twitter feed http://twitter.com/Stuart_Dent

[mapguy]

Donnington Park? In 1977? AFAIK the only time F1 has run there was in 1993 for the European GP.

[Andrew Longman]

Great pics!

What see too are competitive engineers trying to use all their talents to solve a problem. Rules and specs I think may make that less so now.

I also thought about how in 1993 the PC was 10 years old but processing power was still pretty weak and expensive so even though this car probably had a CF monocoque, it really wasn't effective yet for CAD-CAM model and mold-making yet.

Err...Scratch that last part

[cameraman]

Donnington Park? In 1977? AFAIK the only time F1 has run there was in 1993 for the European GP.

The photo was a demonstration at Donnington in 2007, the race was at Silverstone in 1977. Got that a bit mangled:rolleyes:

Ugh and it was the first turbo not turbine:shakehead:

I swear I wasn't drunk when I posted that.

[cameraman]

Ya have to wonder how any of them survived..

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BykaFF_CUAA0QgW.jpg:large

Jody Scheckter in his 1979 Ferrari 312T4

in more assembled form…

http://everythingformula1.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/ferrari312t41.jpg

Damn thing is as ugly as sin.