{"id":17721,"date":"2024-11-15T07:55:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T10:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/?page_id=17721"},"modified":"2025-06-26T16:48:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T19:48:06","slug":"grid-s1-49-spark","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/grid-s1-49-spark\/","title":{"rendered":"Grid S1 #49 – Spark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"S1\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
1983 Grid S1 #49<\/strong>
Pilots: F. Stiff, D. Wood, R. Ratcliff
Team: Grid Motor Racing Ltd.<\/em>
Race: DNF (Group C) at Le Mans in 1983<\/strong>
Spark - S9424 (resin)<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Published 11\/15\/24<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first time the Grid team raced at La Sarthe was in 1981, using a Lola T600. They finished in 15th<\/sup> place, inspiring team bosses Giuseppe Risi and Ian Dawson to build their own Group C car. The following year, at team headquarters in Leamington, England, they contacted Geoff Aldridge, a former Lotus employee. Aldridge designed and built an aluminum monocoque chassis, and to power the new car, they went with a crate engine. As was ubiquitous for privateers at the time, they chose a Ford-Cosworth 3955 cm\u00b3 DFL V8. And for shifting, they used a Hewland 5-speed manual gearbox. With the DFL in the chassis, and ready to roll, they christened the new car (chassis #GA01) Grid S1<\/strong>.  However, the car\u2019s aerodynamics were a bit off. Due to excessive<\/em> ground-force, the S1 only reached 300 km\/h on the Hunaudi\u00e8res.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"S1\"\/
Honestly, this is the first time I heard of a race car having \u201ctoo much ground-force\u201d \ud83d\ude33.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
With the car anchored down, they started out in 17th<\/sup> place on the grid. However, excessive ground-force would not be their only problem. Just 25 minutes into the race, on the 7th<\/sup> lap, a burnt-out piston prematurely terminated S1 #37\u2019s<\/a> race. Even with the terrible result, undaunted, Grid came back to La Sarthe in 1983. Using the same chassis and sporting #49, however this time the team revised the aerodynamics. Unfortunately though, with a not-so-strong team of pilots, S1 #49 started in 47th<\/sup> place<\/a> on the grid. Moreover, the driver’s door opened on the track, causing a spin, and the car went through several pit stops. And finally, on the 69th<\/sup> lap, the engine spilled its guts on the track, bringing an end to their race. As always, Le Mans is not for the weak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"S1\"\/
The S1 #49 looks GORGEOUS: to me, that almost looks like one of those hydroplane racers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Like so many before and after, the Grid S1 was one of those cars that \u201cjust passed through\u201d<\/em> Le Mans. Basically, a futile attempt by a bunch of garagisti<\/em> to leave their mark in motorsport history. Harsh as that may sound, the S1 was essentially a flight of fancy. And exactly because of that, this is a fantastic model to have in a Le Mans collection. That and also because Spark hit a home run with the model. Of course that I l-o-v-e to have class and overall winners, who doesn\u2019t? Nonetheless, these oddballs are what make the W-143 Garage really<\/em> interesting \ud83d\ude09. The weirdos, the take-a-look-at-this, the flights of fancy. So, if you\u2019re that kind of collector, S1 #49 is a great buy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1983 Grid S1 #49Pilots: F. Stiff, D. Wood, R. RatcliffTeam: Grid Motor Racing Ltd.Race: DNF (Group C) at Le Mans in 1983Spark – S9424 (resin) Published 11\/15\/24 The first time the Grid team raced at La Sarthe was in 1981, using a Lola T600. They finished in 15th place, inspiring team bosses Giuseppe Risi and … Continue reading “Grid S1 #49 – Spark”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17721","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17721"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18650,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17721\/revisions\/18650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-143.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}