The concept is all about simplicity… The whole idea was dad and lad, mum and daughter, whatever the case is, can get out there and have what we feel is affordable fun
There have been quite a few new, lower level single seaters launched over the past few years, most of them indistinguishable to all but the well-trained eye, largely because they try so hard to look like scaled down Formula 1 cars. It is genuinely refreshing, then, when something truly different comes along, like Formula Foundation.
That said, like many good new ideas, this is actually – at least partly – based on something old. In the mid-1980s, when Formula Ford 1600 budgets were going stratospheric, the then owner of Brands Hatch had the idea of introducing a first in British motorsport, a one-make single-seater championship. It’s funny to think that what is now the rule was a revolution in 1987.
And so Formula First was born, featuring a Van Diemen-built car with a transverse-mounted Ford CVH engine, very basic suspension and no aero. It was relatively successful too, with races shown on the BBC’s Top Gear (a very different show back then) and it featured good, if a little wild, racing.
Formula fade
For some reason, it’s hard to find much information these days on Formula First, and it seems to have faded away without a murmur. But every now and then, one of its slightly peculiar looking racecars turns up. For example, a few years ago, a Formula First was brought from Norway to Steve Wills’ fabrication firm based in Snetterton for some work. Wills, a former
