Brabham BT46B Fan Car

Not very often these days do we see a racecar that makes as much impact as the Formula 1 Brabham BT46B Fan Car did back in 1978 when it was raced and then was withdrawn after only one outing. Entirely because it was too quick!

Designed to compete with the Lotus F1 ‘ground effects’ technology, helping the car to suck to the racetrack. The Fan Car exploited a weakness in the rulebook with the cars designer Gordon Murray arguing that the fan was primarily used to ‘cool the engine’ with the ‘fortunate’ side effect of sucking the car to the road.

Murray had only three months to design a fan, 18 inches in diameter that would survive nearly 8,000 revs without falling to pieces, with all the early attempts literally exploding.

Unveiled at the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix, the car instantly became something of a novelty for the other teams and drivers, until they saw it on the track. To protect the new technology from spies, the team covered the fan with a garbage can lid and only uncovered it when it was time to hit the tarmac. The car, Murray claimed, could achieve as much down force standing still as it could travelling at 180mph. Giving you a 2G standing start and enabling you to go round hairpin bends at 150mph.

In order to mask its true potential for the race, Brabham team owner Bernie Eccelstone made the drivers qualify with full tanks of fuel, so they didn’t appear too fast. It worked. Austrian Niki Lauda won the race by 34 seconds but its success was never to be repeated and after pressure applied by the other constructors, the iconic fan car was withdrawn.

Recently stated by F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton as a car he would like to have a drive in, the Brabham BT46B Fan Car is an important piece of motor racing history.