> I assume he means Formula Vauxhall.
> Cheers
> Phil
Over here in your former colonies, FV usually means Formula Vee, which
is a single seater employing Ye Olde VW 1200 or some such displacement
clatterbang opposed four, turned back to front with the ring and pinion
flopped, the gangly old swing arms being located by coil-over shocks,
trailing arms, and a "Z" bar, and utilising the front trailing-link
torsion bar suspension, most often with a couple leafs missing (if they
haven't rusted away already). Most notable for ganging up together at
the start and then falling all over each other through the first turn,
no matter how few laps an FV race may be, it's generally a contest of attrition...
Seriously, they can be fun, though working on one of those old
opposed-fours always brings back bad memories. Ray Caldwell of lore and
legend, now-deceased (I think -- I could definitely be wrong) chief
designer, cook, and bottle-washer of Autodynamics, produced a rather
attractive FV called -- if I recollect rightly -- the Caldwell D-13.
What the previous 12 things were God only knows, but he and Silent Sam
Posey cobbled up a truly miserable CanAm car that was essentially a
go-kart (no suspension except the flex of the tires in front, and
something equally antediluvian in the rear) with an aluminum 454 Chevy
driving the usual Hewland LG-something-or-other transaxle. Brrrr....no
thanks! Interesting, of course, as the first Hewlands actually used the
tunnel-case VW transaxle housings, though the internal gubbins were
definitely NOT made-in-Wolfsburg. The Autodynamics CanAm car was an
unmitigated disaster, and sadly didn't even have the chutzpah and
panache of a similar disaster wrought by Don Nichols at Shadow. Shadow
eventually worked out a fairly decent car (but by the time they did,
Penske's Porsche Panzer Brigade was well on the way to putting the CanAm
series out of business), but the Caldwell excrescence mercifully
disappeared -- though I think it's making the rounds of vintage events now.
Sam Posey then went out and bought himself a customer Lola (Sam was born
with wads of the elusive spondulix), which he lent to friend and Car &
Driver writer Charles Fox for an article in that once-decent magazine.
Fox promptly wadded it into an unsalvageable ball, which most likely
saved Posey a great deal of further embarrasment. Poor Mr. Fox was, and
is, a great writer; wheelchair bound now, and last seen in the company
of the great physicist Stephen Hawking. Posey currently embarrases
himself on the TeeWee, and will probably be doing exactly that this
weekend, which -- boys and girls -- is the first GP of the 2001 season.
And that's that.
Bart Brown
