Formula One: From Humble Beginnings to Billion Dollar Business

The first Formula One world championship race took place at Silverstone race track in Britain in 1950 and was won by Italian Giuseppe Farina, who only just managed to defeat his Argentine team mate Juan Manual Fangio. However, Fangio won the championship five times over the next ten years, earning him the title of “grand master” of Formula One from many motor sport enthusiasts.

During this initial period, Formula One was almost entirely dominated by teams run by car manufacturers, including Ferrari and Mercedes Benz. However, over the next 20 years the sport of Formula One changed dramatically with the introduction of not only engineering innovations such as fuel injection and aluminium chassis but also instances of sponsorship in the sport – the first being when Lotus painted Imperial Tobacco livery on their cars in 1968. Lotus was also the first team to introduce ground effect aerodynamics that helped the cars increase their cornering speeds by providing tremendous down force.

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Lap of the Gods

A bright yellow indemnity form is pushed towards me, pen resting on top of it. The content is brief, a sole paragraph outlining the fact that there’s a reasonable chance I could be about to die and it’ll be nobody’s fault except my own.

It’s the kind of paragraph that should stop me in my tracks. A paragraph to fire up the alarm bells. Do I really want to risk my life? But instead my eyes flash over the contents, ignoring words like ‘crash’ and ‘maim’, before settling on something far more interesting – the large logo at the top. A logo that says, simply, Lotus. I sign. And then I smile like a schoolboy.

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Best Classic Cars of the Future

 

The man who said the magic line “Ray, fire up the Quattro” is Gene Hunt, a fictional detective in ‘Ashes To Ashes’ – a TV series set in 1980’s Britain – and he drives a bright red Audi UR Quattro. And while Hunt’s completely un-PC view of the world makes compelling viewing, it’s undoubtedly the Quattro that’s become the star of the show.

 

 

They’re fetching £8,000 on eBay, the internet forums are alive with people trying to track down a model for themselves, and for the 30-somethings who were teenagers living in the 80’s, it’s made them realise that the cars they loved then could be classic cars of tomorrow.

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