HONDA The Power of Dreams

F1 is not only a world championship for drivers, but also for automotive engineers engaged in a free, fantastic, and extreme technological competition. The styles of F1 cars that appeared throughout its 75-year history, much like the current hybrid power unit era, are packed with the’ original and novel ideas of engineers.

At the dawn of motor racing in the late 19th century, racing cars powered by bizarre engines such as gravitational motion engines and hydraulic motors entered competitions, though they never made it onto the track. Yet, it can be said that the very nature of humankind inevitably leads to the freedom and idealism of an engineer’s dreams. This is why humanity developed science and technology, despite the twists and turns along the way.

Some of the innovative F1 engines included the 1950 Alfa Romeo 1.5-liter straight-8, the 1962 Porsche 1.5-liter flat-8, the 1966 BRM 3-liter H-type 16-cylinder, the 1971 Lotus 56B’s Pratt & Whitney gas turbine engine, and the 1990 Life F35, a 3.5-liter triple-4-cylinder W12. Before the F1 World Championship was established, the Grand Prix scene also witnessed the Auto Union 6-liter V16, a monster of an engine.

Such outlandish technical styles naturally extended beyond the engines, to the chassis as well. The 1971 Lotus 63 Ford featured four-wheel drive, while the 1976 Tyrrell P34 Ford was a six-wheeled car, with four front wheels for steering. The Tyrrell P34 competed until the 1977 season, claiming a 1-2 finish at the 1976 Swedish Grand Prix, subsequently sparking a brief boom in six-wheel F1 development.

The engineers of Honda’s first F1 era made bold appearances in the history of ingenuity among F1 engineers. When Honda debuted the RA271 at the 1964 German Grand Prix, fans worldwide saw a mid-engine, transversely mounted F1 machine for the first time. Until then, the standard mid-engine layout in F1 had vertically mounted engines; F1 cars with transversely mounted engines simply did not exist. At the same time, the world witnessed another first in F1 Grand Prix history: The Honda RA271E, powered by a 1.5-liter V12 engine. The 1.5-liter engine era, which began in 1961, saw competition among inline-4s, V6s, V8s, and flat-6s and flat-8s. No manufacturer had introduced the pinnacle of multi-cylinder engines: the V12. This too was a world first. Both the innovative transverse layout and the coveted V12 engine were the brainchild of Honda’s founder, Soichiro Honda.

For Soichiro Honda, once Honda had conquered the 125cc and 250cc classes of the Motorcycle World Championships in 1961 with transversely mounted multi-cylinder engines, adopting this layout for F1 was simply a matter of course, a challenge he embraced with his characteristic spirit. The engineers tasked with turning this idea into reality worked with fierce determination. Though it was their first attempt at designing and building an F1 car, it was not an impossible task. They possessed the technology and history of dominating the motorcycle world championships and becoming the world’s top motorcycle manufacturer.

However, this area where technical details such as aesthetic beauty or fast and accessible performance were less compelling, posed difficulties for the engineers. Mounting a V12 engine transversely meant that no matter how compact the engine was designed, the car’s overall width would be greater than a vertical layout. Shaping that less-than-sleek width into a chassis that looked undeniably pleasing and fast was more an art than a technical feat. Developing performance for speed and ease of driving—essentially creating a super sports machine—became a trial-and-error endeavor. This was an era when Japan had not a single test driver with extensive F1 driving experience. Honda’s engineers, who achieved these monumental technical feats and sent the world’s first transverse V12, the RA271, to the racetrack, were then plagued by the RA271’s poor track-side serviceability.

The engineers track-side nicknamed it the “shoehorn engine,” as it was an engine crammed into a tight space like forcing a foot into a tight shoe. Minor inspections and maintenance that would take less than an hour on a car with a conventional longitudinal engine had required all-night work.

Yet, Honda developed race strategies with the RA272, a direct descendant of the RA271, caught a break, and claimed a victory when it demonstrating the car’s true potential. The efforts of the track-side engineers had been rewarded.

Even for Soichiro Honda, whose technical philosophy was superhuman in its essence, the development of the next F1 car, the Honda RA302, powered by a 3-liter naturally aspirated air-cooled V8 engine, remained an unattainable dream. In 1967, Soichiro suddenly began advocating the universal superiority of air-cooled engines. He declared that all mass-produced automobiles would be powered by naturally aspirated air-cooled engines, and as a natural progression, pursued development of a naturally aspirated air-cooled F1 engine. Honda’s technical development team at the time was nothing short of brilliant. They not only created but raced the RA302, powered by such an engine, that complied with the 1968 F1 regulations.

Moreover, the RA302’s chassis was designed with a vision looking ten years ahead, anticipating the near-future F1 car. The disappearance of the radiator from the front nose and the realization of a wedge shape demonstrated clear foresight, becoming the standard in F1 over the subsequent decade. The RA302 was, without exaggeration, an unprecedented design.

Its naturally aspirated V8 engine, however, could not solve an overheating problem. The Silverstone circuit in Britain at the time was 4.265 km long track on which the average speed was nearly 200 km/h. The RA302, tested there for the first time, overheated after just a few laps and was unable to complete ten consecutive laps. Despite this, it was entered in the 1968 French Grand Prix (Rouen) in July. It qualified effectively at the back of the grid, and the race ended with it crashing on the second lap after going off-track.

An improved RA302 entered qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix two months later, but again missed the race due to overheating. Ultimately, the RA302 vanished from the racing scene without completing a race.

Today, the RA302 is exhibited in the Honda Collection Hall. Its exceptionally beautiful shows no sign of fading, even as it approaches its 60th year. It still shows fans the dream that, had solutions to the naturally aspirated V8 engine’s overheating been solved, it could have been an F1 car with a glorious record. The RA302 is, undoubtedly, a captivating F1 machine.

Spectators at F1 Grands Prix are often called car dreamers. They come to the circuits seeking the dreams that humans and cars can create. The two utterly original cars from Honda’s first F1 era are reminders that the dreams Honda envisioned in the 1960s still exist as the dreams of today.

That is because these two cars embody the real dreams that only racing cars crafted with heart and soul can possess.