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.
Great story (apart from repeat uses of "must of" - sorry, cannot help myself).
I doubt very much that the car under the sheet was the Imola crash car. That was impounded by the Italian authorities immediately after the race and wasn't given back to Williams for years.
I presume it might have been one of the Imola spares.
I doubt very much that the car under the sheet was the Imola crash car. That was impounded by the Italian authorities immediately after the race and wasn't given back to Williams for years.
I presume it might have been one of the Imola spares.
Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 21st December 16:03
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.
king wow. OMG. You lucky, lucky bWhat an wonderful experience.
Late 90's and i went to do an audit at a company in Didcot, turned up, noticed that a lot of the fixtures and fittings were yellow and blue but didnt twig. Was put in the "board room" to do my audit and was then told by the person looking after me that "this used to be Frank Williams old office". Williams had moved out in previous years.......
I got a big kick out of this and IIRC i spent most of the day phoning my mates on my big brick mobile telling them i was working today in Frank Williams office.........
Late 90's and i went to do an audit at a company in Didcot, turned up, noticed that a lot of the fixtures and fittings were yellow and blue but didnt twig. Was put in the "board room" to do my audit and was then told by the person looking after me that "this used to be Frank Williams old office". Williams had moved out in previous years.......
I got a big kick out of this and IIRC i spent most of the day phoning my mates on my big brick mobile telling them i was working today in Frank Williams office.........
kazste said:
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.
My wife worked for DRA/DERA (now QinetiQ)back then and they had a couple of their composite engineers/experts travel to Italy to cary out an examination of the wrecked car on behalf of Williams' legal team. 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.
So, I very much doubt that the crashed car was at Williams' HQ in 1994.
Edited by Eric Mc on Tuesday 21st December 16:38
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!
kazste said:
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!
They're 35mm slides? You need to scan at a higher res then. Or get Jessops to do it.
Lovely story, never really thought Frank would be the type of bloke to show such generosity but it's a nice surprise to hear he is (or at least was in this case).
Horribly jealous though. I was a massive Damon fan as a kid growing up, and in turn a massive Williams fan, I'd take every single one of those cars if I could. The liveries are classic, both Camel/Canon and Rothmans, miles better than anything these days.
Are you sure it was 94 though? That rear shot of the car with wet tyres on looks like the 95/96 car
Horribly jealous though. I was a massive Damon fan as a kid growing up, and in turn a massive Williams fan, I'd take every single one of those cars if I could. The liveries are classic, both Camel/Canon and Rothmans, miles better than anything these days.
Are you sure it was 94 though? That rear shot of the car with wet tyres on looks like the 95/96 car
Edited by F1GTRUeno on Tuesday 21st December 17:45
F1GTRUeno said:
Lovely story, never really thought Frank would be the type of bloke to show such generosity but it's a nice surprise to hear he is (or at least was in this case).
Horribly jealous though. I was a massive Damon fan as a kid growing up, and in turn a massive Williams fan, I'd take every single one of those cars if I could. The liveries are classic, both Camel/Canon and Rothmans, miles better than anything these days.
Are you sure it was 94 though? That rear shot of the car with wet tyres on looks like the 95/96 car
I was just thinking that, it definately looks like the 95 car. Wonderful pics and story though, cant see that happening these days!Horribly jealous though. I was a massive Damon fan as a kid growing up, and in turn a massive Williams fan, I'd take every single one of those cars if I could. The liveries are classic, both Camel/Canon and Rothmans, miles better than anything these days.
Are you sure it was 94 though? That rear shot of the car with wet tyres on looks like the 95/96 car
Edited by F1GTRUeno on Tuesday 21st December 17:45
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