Williams Factory Tour 1994
Discussion
Background of this for those who have not seen the Frank Williams tribute thread.
around august-september time, my Mum my Dad and myself were on the way back from Sandbanks where a friend had a flat, coming down the motorway we saw a sign for Didcot and being a massive fan of Formula 1 i asked my dad in the polite manner that any 14 year old kid would, if we could go and try to find the Williams factory.
Well didcot can't of been that big a place as we managed to find the gates to the factory extremely easily, pulled up in our red sierra sapphire (1.8 seeing as its pistonheads) got out and stared wistfully through the gates at the factory. Just as we started to get a camera out the gates started to open and we noticed a security guard walking towards us, I think we all thought we were about to be asked politely to bugger off! Here are the photos of just in front of the gates you can see how the writing has not even begun to wash away yet!
Instead of this the security guard asked us if we'd like to come through a bit to get some better photos without the gates getting in the way.
We got chatting to the security guard and after about 5 minutes of taking photos from our vantage point, a maroon Renault saloon car drove out from the rear of the factory and towards the gates. Upon reaching the security guard the driver and the guard and a bit of a chat the car then changed its direction and parked up near to where we had left our car, and the driver helped Sir Frank Williams out of the car.
My parents started talking to Frank and thanking him for letting me take these photos, he then turned to me and asked if I thought we had time to go on a little tour of the factory!
Here are the photos of the factory any questions please ask and I will try to answer.
wind tunnel scale model. I can't remember the exact figures but the waiting list for these was in years and was apparently too much for me to put on a Christmas list!
as you can see there were halls full of cars, I only have pictures of the more modern ones as this was my era, but i believe my dad has some photos that he took of the Saudi Air cars, I will check next time I see him.
After this Frank went (to be fair it was the weekend and he did try to leave over an hour ago) and the security guard took us into one of the workshops which had a car which had just come back that morning from I believe Barcelona where it was testing. the only request we had, apart from dont sit in it, was no photos of the cockpit.
The next photo was taken in one of the halls, I have no proof of what the car is apart from what the security guard told us. He told us that the car furthest away under the blue sheet was Ayrton Senna's car from Imola. As said I have no proof of this as obviously was not allowed, or to be honest even thought about looking under the sheet, and have always thought it strange that it was sat in the factory when I believe there are many public reports stating they did not get that car back for years. I may of misunderstood, I may not of I honestly don't know but here's the photo anyway.
and finally as requested in the original thread which started this off enjoy a photo of a gimpy 14 yr old me!
Hope you enjoyed reading, and have a good day.
if the pictures aren't big enough please feel free to change their size (I've only just worked out how to use Flickr so it's well beyond my remit) but please don't copy the one of the Senna car just in case I'm asked to remove it by anyone.
Edited to fix a picture.
around august-september time, my Mum my Dad and myself were on the way back from Sandbanks where a friend had a flat, coming down the motorway we saw a sign for Didcot and being a massive fan of Formula 1 i asked my dad in the polite manner that any 14 year old kid would, if we could go and try to find the Williams factory.
Well didcot can't of been that big a place as we managed to find the gates to the factory extremely easily, pulled up in our red sierra sapphire (1.8 seeing as its pistonheads) got out and stared wistfully through the gates at the factory. Just as we started to get a camera out the gates started to open and we noticed a security guard walking towards us, I think we all thought we were about to be asked politely to bugger off! Here are the photos of just in front of the gates you can see how the writing has not even begun to wash away yet!
Instead of this the security guard asked us if we'd like to come through a bit to get some better photos without the gates getting in the way.
We got chatting to the security guard and after about 5 minutes of taking photos from our vantage point, a maroon Renault saloon car drove out from the rear of the factory and towards the gates. Upon reaching the security guard the driver and the guard and a bit of a chat the car then changed its direction and parked up near to where we had left our car, and the driver helped Sir Frank Williams out of the car.
My parents started talking to Frank and thanking him for letting me take these photos, he then turned to me and asked if I thought we had time to go on a little tour of the factory!
Here are the photos of the factory any questions please ask and I will try to answer.
wind tunnel scale model. I can't remember the exact figures but the waiting list for these was in years and was apparently too much for me to put on a Christmas list!
as you can see there were halls full of cars, I only have pictures of the more modern ones as this was my era, but i believe my dad has some photos that he took of the Saudi Air cars, I will check next time I see him.
After this Frank went (to be fair it was the weekend and he did try to leave over an hour ago) and the security guard took us into one of the workshops which had a car which had just come back that morning from I believe Barcelona where it was testing. the only request we had, apart from dont sit in it, was no photos of the cockpit.
The next photo was taken in one of the halls, I have no proof of what the car is apart from what the security guard told us. He told us that the car furthest away under the blue sheet was Ayrton Senna's car from Imola. As said I have no proof of this as obviously was not allowed, or to be honest even thought about looking under the sheet, and have always thought it strange that it was sat in the factory when I believe there are many public reports stating they did not get that car back for years. I may of misunderstood, I may not of I honestly don't know but here's the photo anyway.
and finally as requested in the original thread which started this off enjoy a photo of a gimpy 14 yr old me!
Hope you enjoyed reading, and have a good day.
if the pictures aren't big enough please feel free to change their size (I've only just worked out how to use Flickr so it's well beyond my remit) but please don't copy the one of the Senna car just in case I'm asked to remove it by anyone.
Edited to fix a picture.
Edited by kazste on Tuesday 21st December 16:24
Edited by kazste on Tuesday 21st December 16:26
Yeah it was very cool, I can remember the day after my dad went to work and was recalling the tale to one of his colleuges who raced alfa's and had apparently been trying to get a factory tour organised for his racing friends but kept getting nowhere. He was apparently sick with envy.
I did wonder when posting the pic that it may of been senna's spare car for that weekend, never thought to question it when there so guess I'll never know.
As for my repeating of "must of" one of us must be reading the post wrong as I can't even see one example!
The other thing that struck me most about the experience is how highly they both spoke of ayrton, and indeed stated to my parents that if he had been at the factory they would of been waiting for hours while he showed me around everything.
It struck me that much that even though I was never a senna fan while he was alive, ever since that visit I have admired him.
As for my repeating of "must of" one of us must be reading the post wrong as I can't even see one example!
The other thing that struck me most about the experience is how highly they both spoke of ayrton, and indeed stated to my parents that if he had been at the factory they would of been waiting for hours while he showed me around everything.
It struck me that much that even though I was never a senna fan while he was alive, ever since that visit I have admired him.
Bigger pictures can be arranged as long as someone tells me how. I have done them as PIC's as couldn't get IMG to work which is how I normally do them. As a bit of background though they are 35mm stills scanned into my computer then uploaded to Flickr. Any ideas how to make bigger greatly appreciated. Anything too technical will cause me to whimper and ignore though!
fantastic photo's of the new conference centre, i keep meaning to get some gear ratios as £25 for two wonderfully made pieces is really a bargain in my eyes and could sure find something imaginative to do with them if i bought about 10!
thanks for your photos.
anyone have anymore? even if not Williams would be very interested to see them.
thanks for your photos.
anyone have anymore? even if not Williams would be very interested to see them.
I definitely don't remember the scalextrix, maybe the metro as I remember seeing one somewhere but couldn't say where and would make sense it being there. The one I remember is mainly blue with white front and rear plus side skirts. There were lots of white cars Poss Saudi air sponsored, which my dad has photos of and have asked him for in order to post those as well. I do have a few more including a front photo of the car which had just finished testing at Barcelona which I need to play with to get brighter but when I work it out will post those as well.
Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff