Grand Prix Rejects

Alright people, while on my nightly photo splurge on Twitter I came across three rather interesting pictures of Eric van de Poele in a Modena-Lambo 291, at Barcelona. The car was different to normal - it had conventional square sidepods rather than the triangular ones which have made the car famous. Here are those pictures:






Photo credits to whoever took them in the first place.

I had never known this car to have such a design, so I was wondering if anyone else knew anything about it?

There are pictures of van de Poele driving a conventional 291 at Barcelona, such as this one:



Furthermore, photos of Larini at the Spanish GP show him using the conventional triangular sidepod design, while photos from Japan and Australia of both Larini and van de Poele confirm that this wasn't a late-season upgrade. At every race in 1991 it seems they ran with the triangular sidepods, except for these three photos.

Was it a separate test, perhaps after the race? The shot with the garage suggests it must have been around the time of the Grand Prix, because of the Tio Pepe sponsor signs. Was it a potential upgraded design for 1992?

Comparing the conventional and square sidepod photos above, a lot of sponsor logos have been moved about (happened throughout the year), but the rear wing looks to be in the same configuration. The font used for the car number is different, but if you look at photos over the season, bizarrely this font seems to change at almost every race. The front suspension mounting points, nose cone and front wing look identical, as does the airbox and upper engine cover.

So what was this all about? Anyone have any clues?

AndreaModa wrote:So what was this all about? Anyone have any clues?

My only contribution is to say that that's a damn beautiful car.

But you already knew that.

AndreaModa wrote:The font used for the car number is different, but if you look at photos over the season, bizarrely this font seems to change at almost every race.

EVDP was seen so little on the track back in the days where not even qualifying made it to the TV, that the "nightly photo splurge" is the first time I've seen his car with anything other than the two fonts shown above. It started with the odd script that was more likely to be seen on the side of a pickup truck somewhere in Alabama, then moved to the blocky American university style... then the team must have been desperate at some stage as Eric's 35 appeared in Gill Sans in yellow, then with a horrid mixture of the 3 in the university font and the 5 in the Alamaba truck script.

The number 35 has an unusually rich reject history. Andrea Moda did much the same for Perry McCarthy in 1992, though they did a lot worse with his car overall than just the numbers. Aguri Suzuki's misadventure with Zakspeed is the stuff of reject folklore, Onyx had it when they folded, Toleman had their ignominious start with it... Bruno Giacomelli was in car 35 for Alfa Romeo in 1979, so the effect must have been a bit delayed (i.e. eleven years). And probably best of all, Hans Heyer had number 35 on his ATS when he missed the cut in qualifying but started anyway for a laugh.

Is the airbox the same? Possibly a trick of perspective but it looks ever so slightly thinner to me.

Anyhow, those sidepods are wrong, wrong, wrong! Why try and destroy such a beauty? One day I will see it in the Lamborghini museum (I think they have the No.35 on it as well!)

Man do the "normal" pods really kill the looks. Thank God whatever they tested didn't work.

DNPQ_ producing outstanding content as always.

Did we ever find out who is behind that account?

FullMetalJack wrote:DNPQ_ producing outstanding content as always.

Did we ever find out who is behind that account?

I think so!!!

I can't take much credit to be fair - all I'm doing is re-posting other people's photos. It's nice that people are enjoying it though. It'll be back to random photos again soon once all the DNQs/DNPQs are done!

It's a shame we can't find out more about this Lambo 291 with square sidepods though. I've learnt that the team had commissioned Sergio Rinland to design a car for 1992 late on in October 1991 so this might have some relation to that. And that Forghieri had returned to the team to try and organise it as a viable entity with Lamborghini stepping away.

This is absolutely brilliant. Long Live DNPQ_

Those sidepods look 640-esque.

AndreaModa wrote:Alright people, while on my nightly photo splurge on Twitter I came across three rather interesting pictures of Eric van de Poele in a Modena-Lambo 291, at Barcelona. The car was different to normal - it had conventional square sidepods rather than the triangular ones which have made the car famous. Here are those pictures:






Photo credits to whoever took them in the first place.

I had never known this car to have such a design, so I was wondering if anyone else knew anything about it?

There are pictures of van de Poele driving a conventional 291 at Barcelona, such as this one:



Furthermore, photos of Larini at the Spanish GP show him using the conventional triangular sidepod design, while photos from Japan and Australia of both Larini and van de Poele confirm that this wasn't a late-season upgrade. At every race in 1991 it seems they ran with the triangular sidepods, except for these three photos.

Was it a separate test, perhaps after the race? The shot with the garage suggests it must have been around the time of the Grand Prix, because of the Tio Pepe sponsor signs. Was it a potential upgraded design for 1992?

Comparing the conventional and square sidepod photos above, a lot of sponsor logos have been moved about (happened throughout the year), but the rear wing looks to be in the same configuration. The font used for the car number is different, but if you look at photos over the season, bizarrely this font seems to change at almost every race. The front suspension mounting points, nose cone and front wing look identical, as does the airbox and upper engine cover.

So what was this all about? Anyone have any clues?

An interesting find - the appearance of the sidepods in the second picture reminds me a bit of the Larrousse LC92.

As you say, the most logical guess would be that this car might have been a potential test hack for a 1992 chassis. Forghieri does briefly mention in his book that the design of the radiators had been compromised on the 291 due to a lack in funding to do enough windtunnel testing to sort out flaws in the design, so it would seem logical that the team would probably have diverted resources towards addressing those issues if they had planned to enter in 1992.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/b66600158032538

Might be of interest to people here.

http://www.forum-duegieditrice.com/view ... 27&t=58852

Square sidepods was an update that the team wanted to do several races before, but they didn't have the money for that. They got problems with triangulars pods that didn't cool well. At last and in a desperate effort, mechanics reached to build these classical pods the night before the spanish weekend ! But without possibility to test and develop the concept, they turn back with triangular for the rest of season
In this video it is explained (in italian, go to 20'00") :
https://youtu.be/0aKOO3pyz84?t=1208

This video shows the square pods were also used in Portugal. https://youtu.be/VOX2IxJxvss