Costin Nathan
Costin Nathan is the name of a series of racing cars that Frank Costin developed together with Roger Nathan .
After various projects in racing car construction, including at Vanwall , Lotus , Lister , Maserati and Marcos , the aircraft engineer and aerodynamicist Frank Costin turned to another project in 1965/1966, the construction of an ultra-light mid-engine racing sports car.
Based on one of the favored him Plywood - monocoque developed first two open racing car, which one Roger Nathan successfully started. Inspired by these successes, a coupé version was developed from 1966 and offered to private drivers alongside the Spyder at the 1966 London Racing Car Show. All Costin-Nathan were initially motorized with prepared Hillman-Imp engines with 998 cm³ displacement. Thanks to their aerodynamics and very low weight, these small coupés were quite successful in racing, including in the 500 km races at the Nürburgring in 1967 and 1968.
However, problems were caused by the filigree subframes in the rear, which did not always withstand the stresses. From then on, further assignments only ran through Roger Nathan, because Frank Costin had withdrawn from the project because he was supposed to design a Formula 2 car for the 1967 season, the Protos, for racing team owner Ron Harris .
Nathan used the Costin Coupé in 1967 in the 24-hour race of Le Mans and in the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring . A further development with a more powerful BMW engine was still being tackled, as was that with one of the tried and tested Lotus twin cam units, but Roger Nathan was already working on a racing version for the 1969 season, the Astra racing car, for which he relied on essential construction details of the Costin Coupé, such as the plywood chassis, which he adopted almost unchanged.
literature
- Dennis E. Ortenburger: Flying On Four Wheels - Frank Costin and his car designs. Patrick Stephens Ltd., England 1986, ISBN 0-85059-770-6
