Tavenor
The Tavenor was a sports car prototype from 1968.
The vehicle
The Tavenor, which the English racing driver Raymond Tavenor Nash designed in 1966, built in 1967 and subsequently used, was a very flat racing car. The vehicle had the partially modified plywood chassis of a Marcos Fastback who had previously had an accident, one of those Marcos Ltd works racing cars that competed against Abarth works cars in the 1963 Nürburgring 500 km race . In the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring in 1968 and the 500 km race in the same year, however, the Tavenor did not achieve any success, so that the car was no longer used in motor racing from 1969.
particularities
Based on the construction principles of Frank Costin , the use of plywood was largely used, in this case so radically that even the roll cage made of this material was integrated into the body, a construction that finally found sufficient acceptance among the initially irritated technical inspectors when it came to admitting the racing car to races in the 1968 World Sports Car Championship.
The weak points were the metallic components of the rear axle guide (with internal disc brakes), which were largely laminated into the plywood monocoque. For use in the Endurance World Championship, three petrol tanks were retrofitted, two of which were directly under the two seats.
Racing history
After appearances in the English Club Championship in 1967 with some encouraging results, the vehicle was upgraded in early 1968 for use on the international stage in accordance with the regulations, including retrofitting a hardtop in the middle of the season, which mutated the original Spyder version into a coupe.
However, it turned out that the engine-transmission technology, as well as the fragile subframes of the complex independent suspension, were not able to withstand the stresses of a long-distance race.
literature
- Janos Wimpffen: Winged Sports Cars, the internat. Championship for Manufacturers. Motorsport Research Group LLC, ISBN 1893618781 , p. 267.
- Car year 1968-1969. (Report 1000 km race Nürburgring), Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, p. 190.
