Chaparral 2F

Cars

We take our racing cars scary.

And that’s exactly what the Chaparral 2F is.

The brainchild of Jim Hall – a Texan oilman and technical savant – the Chaparral motor racing company toward the end of the 1960s and 1970s produced a fleet of these brutal racing cars.

Most famous was the tarmac-sucking groundforce flirting 2J. You can read about that here. But for some reason we had never noticed the big square-rumped, big winged 2F.

chaparral_2f_2

In the 2F, Hall applied the aerodynamic advances of the aluminum 2E to the older fiberglass chassis closed-cockpit 2D for the 1967 racing season.

A movable wing mounted on struts loaded the rear suspension while an air dam kept the front end planted.

The radiators were according to the webs, moved to positions next to the cockpit. An aluminium-blocked 7 litre engine replaced the 5.3 of the 2D.

The behemoth 2F scored its only win on 30 July 1967 in the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch with Phil Hill and Mike Spence driving. After this race, the FIA changed its rules and effectively banned the 2F as well as the Ford GT40 Mk.IV AND the Ferrari 330 P3/4.

Rules schmules.



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