Brabham BT46B - the fastest vacuum cleaner on the racetrack

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Brabham BT46B - the fastest vacuum cleaner on the racetrack

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Created on May 25, 2020

Text:

Gerhard Schütz

Photos:

Daniel Reinhard

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Brabham BT46 (1978) - Niki Lauda drove the vacuum cleaner version at the Swedish GP, but the photo shows a version without the controversial device

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Murray and Lauda (here, however, talking about the Wing-Car BT 48 from1979

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Lotus 72 in 1970 with designer Maurice Philippe

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Lotus 72 from 1970 - the pioneer of the side cooler

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Ring-Alarm - Jacky Ickx on Ferrari ahead of Jochen Rindt on Lotus 72 - German Grand Prix Hockenheim 1970

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Lotus 72 (1972) - Emerson Fittipaldi in his world champion car

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Brabham BT 44B from 1975 - split radiator in front of the suspensions

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Brabham BT45 (1976) - Grand Prix Historique de Monaco - Series F

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Brabham BT46 - "Form follows function" and still (or therefore) beautiful, thanks to surface radiators on the flanks

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Brabham BT46 - beautiful and fast even when stationary. But unfortunately a hot-tempered character...

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Andretti in the Lotus 79 at the Spanish GP (1978)

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Lotus 79 from 1978 - the wing car that ushered in a new era

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Brabham BT46 - Test with the surface radiators. The chief mechanic from Alfa Romeo (right) looks skeptical

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Brabham BT46 with low, wide front radiator instead of elegant surface cooling - a makeshift solution

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Brabham Type 44 from 1975 - even before Chapman's wing car, Murray created a small ground effect (negative pressure) with these aprons

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Chaparral 2J from 1970 with two separate fan motors. Fast in the Can-Am - and fast forbidden

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Chaparral 2J from 1970 with two fans with separate motors

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Chaparral 2J from 1970 - the mechanism of the vertically movable aprons is clearly visible

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Brabham BT 46B - rear section with horizontal radiator on the flat engine

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Brabham BT 46B - oil cooler on the left and right, water cooler above the engine

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Brabham BT 46B - the Pitot tube for measuring the dynamic pressure under the car; standard today

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Brabham BT 46B - sucked past Andretti. The beautiful back cannot delight the Lotus driver and future world champion

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Lively to excited dispute - tactician Ecclestone, old master Chapman and technical pop star Murray

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The 1979 Brabham BT 47 was planned from the ground up as a fan car, but was of course never built

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The T50 in 2020 - the vacuum cleaner for the road

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The T50 2020 with V12 engine and 650 hp, narrow, short and light (under 1000 kg.), "the last analog sports car" (Murray)

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The T50 2020 - complex air routing for a road athlete

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Summary

The vacuum cleaner of the race track, or how to solve a cooling problem with downforce and vice versa, could have been the title of this article. It's about the Brabham BT 46B, which was used in exactly one race in 1978 and won it at the first attempt. It was the brainchild of designer Gordon Murray and, had it not been prevented, the vacuum cleaner principle would probably have revolutionized Formula 1. But things turned out differently. This article looks back at the turbulent Formula 1 years and explains the technologies used at the time.

This article contains the following chapters

Brabham 1978: Radiator lust and frustration
Hot idea for cooling and something else: BT46B
One race, one victory
Murray is not discouraged
Dismantling
Epilogue
Sources

Estimated reading time: 12min

Preview (beginning of the article)

Greens can hardly wait for the end of the combustion engine. Petrolheads hope it will take a little longer. From a physical and technical point of view, the electric motor is clearly superior to the combustion engine. The efficiency of the combustion engine reaches up to approx. 45% at full load, but with the electric motor it is up to 95% (if electricity generation is not included), and this over a wider load range. It is no coincidence that gasoline engines are called heat engines and not power-heat engines. This means that, in addition to power, they produce a lot of waste heat and therefore have a rather low level of efficiency.

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