Eifelland

Team Eifel Country caravans was a motor racing team, which was also in the Formula 1 World Championship at the start of 1972.

History

Guenther Hennerici, who had come with the construction and sale of caravans for money, founded end of the 1960s, a motorsport team. One reason was his future wife Hannelore Werner provide a further commitment to motor sport. Werner had advanced in the 1960s to Formula 2, but they hardly drove race for the team of her husband.

1970 Brabham BT30 and bought Hennerici a rose with Rolf Stommelen as a driver in the Formula 2 European Championship. Stommelen was a fast driver, but the downside was that he could achieve as an A rider in the Championship no points. After two years, even in Formula 2, the team changed in 1972 in the Formula 1 World Championship.

Hennerici had a curious plan. He earned a March 721, leaving from the object designer Luigi Colani design a new futuristic body. The chassis consisted exclusively of curved lines and the car turned out to be from the beginning to be as good as impassable. When the first tests with the Eifel Country - March E21 queuing, it soon became clear that the March chassis was incompatible with the Colani chassis.

At its debut at the Grand Prix of South Africa March - rear and front wings had to be mounted so that the car received enough downforce. The curved cockpit border remained, but had to be rebuilt because the engine got too little cooling until the middle of the season several times. An important detail of the car, which was launched officially as Eifel land type 21, was the powerful central rear-view mirror, which was mounted just ahead of the steering rim. Rolf Stommelen, the driver described this level as at least used to.

Great successes were not achieved with the vehicle, but Stommelen reached at least eight starts six target arrivals. As Hennerici in the summer of 1972 sold his caravan company and also the joy of motorsport lost, the end of the team was bound to happen. The Grand Prix of Austria was the last race of the Eifel country teams in the Formula 1 World Championship.

The race car was sold and purchased with the proceeds of two Formula 3 March 723. The race cars were running as Eifel land type 23 in formula 3 race. 1974 plunged Rhineland - 374 Toyota - again a converted March racing cars - with Harald Ertl at the wheel on in Formula 2 races. End of the year, the team then finally disappeared.

Whereabouts of the Eifel country Formula 1

After Hennerici had abandoned the caravan business, Rolf Stommelen won the Formula 1 car along with two spare engines as compensation for his wage demands. After a total of eight races Stommelen sold the car about Bernie Ecclestone to John Watson, who damaged it in the second use so strong that it was not rebuilt.

1976 discovered Stommelens former racing mechanic Erwin Derichs ( † 30 January 2012), Mayen, the wreck at a scrap dealer in London, bought it, let it stand and first began in 2002 with the Restoration. Many parts had to be remade, including the badly damaged body. From a Luigi Colani still exist, but are no longer usable copy forms could be removed, which allowed a new building.

Eight years Derichs working on the race car, before he at the Nürburgring vorführte him at the Truck Grand Prix for the first time. Inserts at classic car races are planned.