A company noted for producing under license the Heinkel microcar and the Mk IV Elva Courier hardly seemed like the kind of manufacturer that would have any kind of connection to speed. However, with the contract to build the McLaren racing cars, Trojan was now looking to enter the world of Formula One and Ron Tauranac and his F5000 T102 were deemed the perfect ones to take the company there.

Ron Tauranac would join Australian Jack Brabham as he departed Cooper Car Company to start his own effort. The results of this partnership would be quite effective as Brabham remains the only man in Formula One history to ever win the World Championship driving a car bearing his own name. Brabham would nearly come close to repeating the feat in his final year before mistakes and missed opportunities handed the title, posthumously, to Jochen Rindt.

When Brabham departed for retirement, the company was producing cars for Formula One, Formula 2 and even Formula 3. This was a lot of responsibility Tauranac would practically oversee all by himself. Therefore, at the end of the 1971 season, Tauranac himself would sell off the company to Bernie Ecclestone and Ralph Bellamy and would go into retirement himself.

Tauranac couldn't stay retired for too long. Soon, he would be lured to Trojan by the company's history of producing McLaren M1 sportscars for the Can-Am series. This gave Tauranac the confidence the company had the experience building competitive race cars.

Upon joining Trojan, Tauranac would set about penning his first design. This design would be intended for F5000 and would be known as the T102. Actually built, the T102 would seem to have a relatively unassuming place in Formula One history, especially given that it was a F5000 design.

Tauranac had a vast amount of Formula One experience and was the kind of guy to lead Trojan into the premier motor racing series. Therefore, Trojan-Tauranac Racing would set its sights on the top series beginning in 1974.

Although the decision to venture in Formula One seemed straightforward, there were a lot of things that had to come together before the freshman team could make its first appearance. One of the first elements that needed to come into being was the team's first Formula One chassis.

Although Trojan had a contract to build McLaren sportscars, the company still had a shoestring budget to which it expected its Formula One team to adhere. This meant Tauranac and the rest of the team needed to look for the most cost-effective options available. One of these options needed to include the actual design and construction of the team's car.

Tauranac would turn to his first design upon coming to Trojan, the F5000 T102. Tauranac realized that with some smart design revisions, the car could be rebuilt to Formula One regulation without too much additional cost. Tauranac would set to work and, when he was done, he would take the F5000 car and would turn it into a Formula One competitor.

Tauranac would look to keep as many things as possible the same between the F5000 and the Formula One regulation. Therefore, the T103, as it would become known, would have a very similar nose to the F5000 muse. The full sportscar-like nose element would remain with the center-adjustable wing element. To either side of the adjustable wing element were the squared inlets for the radiators. The whole element would feature endplates and a full-length splitter unlike the F5000 example. The whole nose element would be an effective block for the usually disruptive wishbone and coil-spring arrangement used for the front suspension. However, the large square inlets for the radiators had the tendency to become inducers for instability due to the air becoming pilled up, trying to make its way through the radiator. Therefore, to overcome this, tall vertical flaps would be added to the top of the nose element to either side of the adjustable centerline wing element. This would help to pull the air through the radiator via a lower pressure being created.

The position of the radiator in the nose of the car meant the width of the monocoque structure in between the car's wheelbase would remain quite a bit more narrow without the need for sidepods. Therefore, the slightly-canted monocoque structure of the car would boast of just fuel tanks to either side of the driver's cockpit.

The rear wheels would use a double wishbone arrangement with coil springs adding the stability at the rear. A large rear wing would be used to help produce the downforce and the stability at the rear of the car. Large endplates would be attached to either side of the rear wings to ensure that as much air as possible travelled underneath the underside of the rear wing, in order to help generate the necessary downforce. The endplates would also be important for directing airflow to the oil coolers, which would be mounted to the inside portion of the rear wing endplates.

Tauranac would continue to look to every possible cost-effective measure possible. As a result, the Trojan team would be one of the first pioneers in Formula One to buy customer available engines and gearboxes in order to reduce production costs. Trojan would be the first team to use customer available Cosworth DFV engines with the Hewland 6-speed gearboxes. And, to help extract as much power as possible out of the 450bhp Cosworth, Tauranac would have a large, round airbox attached to the top of the Cosworth engine pointing forward like an inverted jet airliner engine pod.

A driver's tub in every definition of the term, the T103 would merely place a single, wraparound piece of bodywork around the driver's cockpit providing, very precariously, some resemblance of a fully-enclosed cockpit.

Over the course of the 1974 season, the nose element of the car would undergo some evolution. The most dramatic evolution would include a full-length, adjustable front wing attached to the center portion of the nose, sticking out forward of the original nose element.

Hiring Tim Schenken as the team's driver, Trojan would bypass the British non-championship events for its first race and, instead, would enter the Spanish Grand Prix for its first-ever race.

Schenken wouldn't set the world on fire in practice. His best lap of 1:21.89 would only be good enough for 25th on the grid—dead-last. However, the race was about reliability and speed. And, using the Cosworth engine, Trojan would have a reliable powerplant capable over finishing the entire race distance. And, that is exactly what Schenken was en route to doing before he spun off out of the race on the 76th lap of the race.

The late spin off in the Spanish Grand Prix would be followed by a 10th place result in the Belgian Grand Prix at Nivelles, but then a retirement in the Monaco Grand Prix. Besides a couple of races in which the team would fail to qualify, the team would only finish one other race over the course of the 1974 season, which happened to be the Austrian Grand Prix held at the Osterreichring on the 18th of August.

Unfortunately, like many small privateer teams throughout Formula One's history, the very limited budget of Trojan would quickly run out and the team would be faced with the very real proposition of its Formula One project having been a one season prospect.

Despite the fact the Trojan-Tauranac Racing team was over and done after just a single season, the team's Formula One car remained intact. And, in historic grand prix the T103 would find a glory never before possible.

Sources:

Diepraam, Mattijs. 'Ron Tauranac's Other Marque', (http://8w.forix.com/trojan.html). 8W: The Stories Behind Motor Racing Facts and Fiction. http://8w.forix.com/trojan.html. Retrieved 29 December 2012.

'1974 Trojan T-103 Formula One', (http://www.fantasyjunction.com/cars/574-Trojan-T-103%20Formula%20One-Cosworth%203.0%20DFV). Fantasy Junction: Brokers of Fine Collector Automobiles and Vintage Race Cars. http://www.fantasyjunction.com/cars/574-Trojan-T-103%20Formula%20One-Cosworth%203.0%20DFV. Retrieved 29 December 2012.

Wikipedia contributors, 'Trojan-Tauranac Racing', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 28 December 2012, 00:01 UTC, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trojan-Tauranac_Racing&oldid=530059624 accessed 29 December 2012

by Jeremy McMullen