Where Do You Buy Formula 1 Cars?

[Music] if you've ever wanted to buy a formula one car there's kind of two main ways you can go about doing it the first way is to get a heritage car you know a car that's previously been raced on but you're gonna have to have deep pockets because you have to go along to a private seller or to an auction and bid on the latest car that's been released by a team congratulations sir two million four hundred thousand just like recently with lewis hamilton's 2010 mclaren mp4 which was sold for around 4.8 million pounds but that amount is just for the car itself that's not taking into account having to hire engineers and mechanics every time you want to take the car to track and that's also to maintain all the racing parts which were built at a different time and those parts do break down quite often for example a 1998 benetton which is currently on the market for around half a million pounds has had his engine wishbones suspension and gearbox replaced to working racing spec but that gearbox can only do 300 miles before having to be replaced and the reason why the internals have such a short lifespan is because they were made to be racing cars to run at the absolute limit the entire time in a race not worrying about the longevity of it which means the efficiency of it isn't that great i mean we see that with formula one teams changing engines during the season that's pretty common and it works the exact same here there is a second option though which is far cheaper which is buying a show car from somewhere like formula one authentics which is a full scale replica of the real thing and although they look the part and only cost a fraction of the price they are only built for display and basically are just copies of the original chassis with no internal components with a bog standard non-race winning copy that can start around 66 000 pounds but for something like the 1000 gp special edition from ferrari with leclair and vettel signature that'll cost you 630 000 pounds and that's for a car that doesn't even move however there is a third option which takes the best of both worlds [Music] this is my mate james densley who is the chief technical director of tour de force who specialize in private ownership of formula one cars but make it so that you're not needing 20 mechanics around every time you want to take it to track but this isn't a knockoff version in the slightest they take a race driven chassis from formula one and convert the internals so it still has the same performance but can last a hell of a lot longer and they make it tailored all around you so you're not having to fit into a seat which was moulded for someone else and then struggling to reach the pedals but being able to switch on the car from the cockpit and so on plus with an entire team who's come from formula one to work on your custom f1 car you know these cars will definitely pack a punch my backstory is a bit the same as most people i was racing when i was a kid and then ran out of budget to do that so i decided to pick the tools up and i worked my way through all the junior formulas to formula one worked with mercedes amg patronus and then since then i came back out of there and i've been working here doing this ever since so we took a modern era chassis and took all the stuff that makes it difficult out and put an easy to run power train in that maintains about the same sort of horsepower and made it easy maintainable and usable for someone to own as a private car from a buyer perspective when they come to us most of them generally know what they want we can procure cars for people so we've got quite a list of stuff we can go to and try and work out what area you want what kind of feel you want to go for from there we'll start piecing the bits together we'll get the chassis that you want in go through all those steps from starting from the initial 3d scanning to getting engines and starting to build the car in cad and build it out to be how you want it some of the components that have been changed are things like the steering column which have been changed from carbon to steel to their own carbon brake compound to better tackle brake temperatures but some areas are kept to what we expect from a normal formula one car for example using pirelli tires so we've got a really great working relationship with pirelli we work with them quite closely to make sure we can deliver a new tire to a client housing when they want it which is great they are slightly different and we can run them without blankets which is the biggest game for us when you're running a car with maybe two people blankets become quite a lot of work and especially if people want to be out having a day where they're in and out of the garage quite a lot it's a lot of work to do it's got a full cylinder turbo in it it produces the same amount of horsepower but the service kilometers go out to 3000 kilometers everything's just that little bit turned down but still given the same sort of performance to put that into perspective a heritage car you can look at maybe 400 kilometers maximum between an engine rebuild if it's fully original with this we're 3 000 kilometers so most people's necks fall off before you get to 200 kilometers in a day so the over 3000 kgs you get quite a lot of life out of the car so this particular car is a client car it's off to the west coast of the usa um very shortly actually rear end wise everything from here back is all our own apart from all the aero devices for most clients they don't really see the benefit from it because not trying to overtake other people um but yeah generally it's quite fixed although we do have different options so we have a monza version for this wing and we've also got a more high downforce monaco kind of version steering wheel in this car this is our v1 sort of shakedown steering wheel if you like which is one that we use in here for development we've got an over boost because the car's obviously a turbo so various different map settings that we can change and then on the back uh clutches which will be something that from a client point of view takes a little we're getting used to because they're on the hand and then get shifters for up and down cockpit quite conventional for f1 um but we tried to simplify it with a few less bits and pieces this side is our main switchbox for the driver so we've got a p0 to p1 switch and then a p1 to p2 switch and it's slightly different to an f1 car we've got a start switch down here so the driver can start the car on board and then on this side we've got some switches for brake bias we've got a switch for the rain light gearbox and the fire extinguisher everything front end in the car is apart from stuff internally is all original to the car so we're on full original carbon suspension all the brake drums are original although we don't have to manage the temperatures quite so much because of the arrow and develop brake disc and all of this stuff goes through a full ndt process the same as it would do with f1 and everything is life so this is the more fragile end of the car and the more delicate end but everything is proven to do the mileage that we say it will do so pedals in this car essentially the same spec as they were in the day again we're made from aluminium and tie rather than carbon because it's more durable last longer but again this is a another area that's fully driver dependent so whoever comes to buy the car they're fully changeable changing in size widths pedal pads for different feet positions the only issue we struggle with is driver height because bigger feet don't fit like george russell found out last year but yeah it's another like quite intricate part of the car that people don't get to see but is also completely custom to the driver slightly different with this compared to the moulds that you'd normally see so we take full 3d scans from inside the chassis and build this seat out which is built to a human body shape inside quite a large human body shape that allows us to do seat fit into this shell or if you're slightly bigger and not like any of the current f1 drivers who are all tiny um gives you a bit more room to sit in the car and again it's fully customizable so all the coverings can be changed for whatever fancy colors you want and likewise will then mould the seats to suit each driver building the car is one thing and for most private sellers and auctions that's pretty much the end of the road but with tdf1 they then go into a full rig and simulation test they'll take the car to a local track to have a full private session to do a full shakedown to fully ensure the car is working correctly going through a full setup program we rig test with a partner of ours so we make sure the car is running in the same sort of window and aerodynamically we haven't touched it we've got really good data from the car originally so we tried to run in that same window the things we have to change mainly are to do with tyre because we run on a slightly different tyre still a pirelli but it's not the same tyre running in the day so we have to compensate for things like that camber changes slightly ride heights change slightly and we make it more friendly for an end user so they don't have to worry about being right on the limit with the car they're just another level the arrow isn't saying just the outright grip that the car has they're quite peaky but that's why we work from this program to bring people through to that but they're just they just blow your mind they're like nothing else and that is the tdf1 program and i'm assuming all of you are thinking the same question how much does this cost so for a tdf-1 as as this sits here they start at 850 000. everything is customizable on the car so you can kind of go as mad as you like from a heritage side they're slightly different and they vary depending on whose car and uh what the history is like and what whether it's full original and you know how much work needs to go into that so if you are in the awesome position to be on the market to actually buy a formula one car then you know who to get in touch with and if you do get in touch with them because you've seen this video i think it's only fair to let me have a bit of a test drive i think that's only fair i do want to say a quick thanks to james and the entire team at tdf1 for let me come along and film what they do because i just find this so fascinating and i hope you guys did as well if you want to find out more information about them they are linked in the description below but thanks very much for watching this video and i really hoped you did enjoy watching it if you did then make sure to click the like button down below if you're new here then make sure to click subscribe in the middle there and if you want to see some more videos of mine you can do so over there on the left hand side but thanks very much for watching and i'll see you next time

Channel: Matt Amys

Views: 17,090

Rating: 4.9780564 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Amys, Buy Formula 1 Cars, F1 Car Auction, F1 Authentics Car, TDF-1, How To Drive F1 Cars, How To Buy Formula One Cars, Lewis Hamilton Car Auction, James Densley

Id: AC231U35EII

Length: 9min 1sec (541 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 16 2021