What a lovely 'uncluttered' design - as cars were then. Apart from that 'wing' of course.
This has prompted me to read about it and it's predecessor the Prince 380 with it's straight 6 GR8 engine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_G_engine#GR-8
What a lovely 'uncluttered' design - as cars were then. Apart from that 'wing' of course.
This has prompted me to read about it and it's predecessor the Prince 380 with it's straight 6 GR8 engine.
I read about the split rear wing. I wonder how safe and stable the car would be? If you were 'leaning' on the suspension and one side was up, other down and you hit a bump so the car went 'light' would the wing alter? Would it steer the car from behind, would it affect braking etc etc.
Imagine recreating this from scratch!I believe that's the kind of stuff they were trying to overcome with the fine-tuning of the 'active' system.
Quite a sophisticated system for the time, but race car aero was still effectively in its infancy (look at the troubles Porsche had with the 917...) and it was a step too far, too soon. They were already working on an improved system for the R382 (which would have the GRX V12 engine that was too late for the R381) but then went back to more conventional bodywork.
Here's a nice fold-out from a period Japanese book on the early Prince & Nissan sports racing cars which gives some insight on the R381's 'Aero Stabilizer':
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