Monday 15th September 2014

BRM V16: Time For Tea?

16 cylinders, 1.5 litres and a supercharger; turn everything up as loud as possible

---

The above specification would sound frankly absurd in 2014 so the fact that the BRM V16 was raced in the 1950s makes it all the more extraordinary. So why is it not remembered as fondly as other F1 cars like the Maserati 250F? Reliability, unfortunately and predictably enough. It was too complex to work consistently and as such the full potential wasn't realised.

The V16's fragile nature continues to this day which explains why the Revival demonstration lap was at rather less than race pace. But there's still enough of that spellbinding noise to get very excited about. Long may it continue to be run and seen and heard at events in the future. As one of the commentators says, it represents "the epitome of British eccentricity in the world of motor racing". Terrific.

Enjoy the vid!

 

[Lead image: LAT]

[fatboy69]

That was ok however for a really awesome soundtrack of the V16 listen to the CD in Nick Masons book 'Into The Red'.

Nicks V16 was driven balls out & sounded epic. Much better than it sounded at Goodwood where it was not driven flat out - I can understand why!

Does anyone remember the day when three of them were run at the same time at Donington many many years ago?

That was a great noise.