fergussen history (no audi content)

[Dave Eaton <Dave.Eaton@clear.net.nz>]

an interesting bit of awd history from today's daily telegraph.  more 
details of this car can be found in the book "the four wheel drives" by 
alan henry.  it might be out of print though...

awd is of course banned in all fia-sanctioned formula (formula 1, f3000, 
f3, gt, prototype, super touring etc.)

enjoy.
dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q


In a fortnight in which Formula One teams are flaunting their new designs 
and technical quirks, it is interesting to look back to when Stirling Moss 
made racing history, outdriving the field in the rain to win the 
non-championship Formula One Gold Cup at Oulton Park in 1961 in the 
revolutionary four-wheel-drive Ferguson P99.

It was the first and only Formula One race won by a four-wheel-drive car 
and also the last Formula One race won by a car with the engine in the 
front.

Irish tractor millionaire, Harry Ferguson, championed the cause of 
four-wheel drive and his research and development company built a Formula 
One car to demonstrate the advantages of all-wheel traction but it was too 
late. Front-engined cars had been superseded.

The previous two world titles in 1959 and 1960 had been won by rear-engined 
Coopers, so the Moss victory in the Ferguson was a hiccup in history, but 
history nevertheless.

The car had three differentials: front, rear and a mid-located differential 
that would lock if either the front wheels or the back outsped each other. 
Moss was fascinated by the Ferguson.

"It was completely different to driving a rear-engined car, and obviously 
the fact that all four wheels were driven and that there was power as well 
as cornering load being applied to the front wheels, asked the driver 
questions which initially perhaps he could not answer very intelligently."

Rob Walker had entered the car for Moss at Oulton Park and he entered it 
again in the 1963 New Zealand series, fitted with a 2.5-litre four-cylinder 
Coventry-Climax engine.

Graham Hill, who was then the new world champion, suffered clutch failure 
on the second lap of the New Zealand Grand Prix but soldiered on to within 
a lap of the finish before the transmission failed. Hill, exhausted and 
unaccustomed to the heat from the front-mounted engine, said it had been 
"like racing a stove".

Innes Ireland raced the Ferguson to third place at Levin and at Teretonga, 
but the car expired with severe overheating on the Wigram airfield circuit. 
"Every guage that wasn't reading 212 degrees was reading zero," reported 
Ireland, also severely overheated.

The gallant old Ferguson is now on display at the Donington Collection.