Team Eifelland Caravans
|
|
| Surname | |
|---|---|
| Companies | |
| Company headquarters | Mayen |
| Team boss |
 Günther Hennerici
|
| statistics | |
| First Grand Prix | South Africa 1972 |
| Last Grand Prix | Austria 1972 |
| Race driven | 8th |
| Constructors' championship | 0 |
| Drivers World Championship | 0 |
| Race wins | 0 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| Points | 0 |
.JPG)
Team Eifelland Caravans was a motorsport team that also competed in the Formula 1 World Championship in 1972 .
history
Günther Hennerici , who had made money building and selling caravans , founded a motorsport team in the late 1960s. One of the reasons was to enable his future wife Hannelore Werner to continue working in motorsport. Werner had advanced into Formula 2 in the 1960s , but she rarely drove for her husband's team.
In 1970 Hennerici bought a Brabham BT30 and entered the Formula 2 European Championship as a driver with Rolf Stommelen . Stommelen was a fast driver, but the disadvantage was that as an A driver in the European Championship he couldn't score any points. After two moderate years in Formula 2, the team switched to the Formula 1 World Championship in 1972 .
_-_1970-05-01.jpg)
Hennerici had a curious plan. He bought a March 721 and had a new futuristic body designed by the object designer Luigi Colani . It consisted entirely of curved lines and the car proved to be virtually impassable from the start. When the first test drives with the Eifelland-March E21 came up, it quickly became clear that the March chassis was not compatible with the Colani chassis.
When making its debut at the South African Grand Prix , the March rear and front wings had to be fitted so that the car received sufficient contact pressure. The curved edge of the cockpit remained, but had to be rebuilt several times until the middle of the season because the engine was not getting enough cooling. An important detail of the car, which was officially launched as the Eifelland Type 21, was the powerful central rear-view mirror that was mounted just in front of the steering edge. Rolf Stommelen, the driver, described this mirror as taking at least getting used to.
Great successes could not be achieved with the vehicle, but Stommelen reached six finishings in eight starts. When Hennerici sold his caravan business in the summer of 1972 and probably also lost interest in motorsport, the end of the team was in sight. The Austrian Grand Prix was the Eifelland team's last race in the Formula 1 World Championship.
The racing car was sold and the proceeds were used to purchase two Formula 3 - March 723 . They ran as Eifelland Type 23 in Formula 3 races. In 1974 a Rhineland 374 Toyota - again a converted March racing car - appeared at Formula 2 races with Harald Ertl at the wheel. At the end of the year the team disappeared for good.
The whereabouts of the Eifelland Formula 1
After Hennerici had given up the caravan business, Rolf Stommelen received the Formula 1 car and two replacement engines as compensation for his wage demands. After a total of eight races, Stommelen sold the car through Bernie Ecclestone to John Watson , who damaged it so badly in the second run that it was never rebuilt.
In 1976, Stommelen's former racing mechanic Erwin Derichs († January 30, 2012) discovered Mayen , the wreckage from a scrap dealer in London, bought it, initially left it and began restoration in 2002. Many parts had to be remade, including the badly damaged body. From a copy that was still available at Luigi Colani, but no longer usable, molds could be removed that made a new building possible.
Derichs worked on the racing car for eight years before he presented it for the first time at the Truck Grand Prix at the Nürburgring . Use in classic car races are planned.
literature
- The Eifel spirit. In: Oldtimer Market. September 2010, pp. 184-189.
Web links
- further information on the Eifelland project
- File: The Eifelland Type 21 in its original form
- The original Colani disguise
- Report on the Eifelland Ford in the comic magazine ZACK (1972)
