The Brabham BT46b (also known as the Fan Car), was a cunning Gordon Murray Formula 1 car, designed to one-up the dominant Lotus 79 in the 1978 Formula One season.
Gordon Murray at Brabham was probably the first rival designer to understand the genius of the Lotus 79, which propelled Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson to win after win, but his hands were tied. Unlike the slender Cosworth V8 engine used in the Lotus, his Brabhams were powered by the wide Alfa Romeo flat-12’s. The powerful Alfa engine was too wide to allow him to install upside-down wings on the sides of the car in the manner of the Lotus.
Since he couldn’t lower the pressure underneath the car by airflow, he revisited an idea first used by that great pioneer of aerodynamics, Jim Hall, on the Chaparral 2J Can–Am car in 1970. What Murray did was install a single giant fan connected by clutches to the car’s engine, getting around the rules by insisting that it was primarily a cooling solution but with the nice side effect of increased ground effects with the fan's acceleration, along with the sealing of the engine bay with skirts to prevent atmospheric air from entering the low-pressure zone created by the fan.
In what would prove to be the car’s only outing before being banned, Niki Lauda and John Watson started the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix behind Andretti’s Lotus. Lauda was immediately on Andretti’s tail after the start and passed him with a dominant move soon afterwards and moved into a lead he would never relinquish, winning the race by over half a minute.
This model has a removable engine cover as a componant revealing the complex interior of the car.
#1978 #Alfa_Romeo #Brabham #BT46 #Chaparral_2J #F1 #Fan_Car #Formula_1 #Gordon_Murray #Jim_Hall #Lotus_79 #Niki_Lauda #racing_car
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