Kiwi racing legend Kenny Smith will be reunited with the iconic Adrian Newey-designed Leyton House March CG891 in which he wowed audiences around the country back in the early nineties at the forthcoming Gulf Oil Howden Ganley Formula 5000 Festival over the weekends of January 16-18 and 23-25 at Hampton Downs.
The ex-Ivan Capelli Judd V8 powered chassis has been brought out of retirement and will join three BRMs, the 3-seater Arrows and the crowd pulling ex-Gerhard Berger V12 Ferrari for the F1 demonstrations during both weekends of the Festival.
Kenny originally purchased the car – chassis number 4 – in 1992 when the Leyton House team went into liquidation. It was effectively ‘as new’ back then, having been rebuilt to F1 standards, before it was run for a while at tracks like Pukekohe, Wigram, Manfeild and Timaru before being sold on. It has sat idle for eight years but Smith and his team will run it again at the Festival in the Formula One demonstration section.
Chassis 4 was new for Capelli at Paul Ricard for the French Grand Prix that year, where it ran second to Alain Prost before retiring late in the race. He used it at Silverstone, Hockenheim, in practice at Hungary’s Hungaroring, at Spa, Monza, Estoril, Jerez, Suzuka (in practice only) and in Adelaide.
The Leyton House colour scheme – which ran for three seasons on March and then Leyton House chassis – is one of the most iconic in F1 history. The CG891, whilst not the most successful of the Leyton House cars, is arguably the most famous because of Mauricio Gugelmin’s spectacular shunt in the car just before the first corner of the French Grand Prix.
There were two highly significant facts about the Leyton House car that year, however. The car was designed by Adrian Newey and was an evolution of his distinctive 1988 design, with refinements including improved aerodynamics and a highly distinctive front-end.
Ideas on the car would later evolve onto Newey’s all-conquering Williams FW12, 13 and 14 series so the car is highly significant in Formula One design terms. It also features a narrow angle EV engine – different from the Judd engines other teams were using in Formula One at the time.
Newey requested this of engineer John Judd as part of his drive for tight packaging of the car. As such, the rear end of the car was arguably the neatest and tidiest of all of the F1 cars of that season and again, set a trend that others would follow.
The narrow angle engine was a unit with a ‘V’ set as 76 degrees rather than the earlier CV’s 90 degrees and it was supplied exclusively to Leyton House for the CG891.
The heart of the CG891 (‘CG’ in memory of the late Cesare Garibaldi, the Italian motor racing wheeler-dealer who helped put the whole Leyton House Formula One deal together but had been killed in a road accident in late 1988) was an ultra slim carbon fibre monocoque with a full width diffuser at the rear courtesy of an inboard gear cluster to make the space.
“This was the era of McLaren Honda with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, Ferrari with ‘Il Leone’ Nigel Mansell and Gerhard Berger and Williams with Riccardo Patrese and Thierry Boutsen and for many the halcyon days of Formula One when there were often twenty or more teams competing, both privateers and manufacturers,” explained Festival Chairman Jim Barclay. “To say we are excited to see this car back out is an understatement. It is a fascinating machine in all regards and we are really looking forward to seeing Ken put it through its paces in the demo section.”
