Fifty years after Jo Marquart from Winterthur designed his first car, Jackie Marquart has commissioned a website about her husband, who died far too young, and his racing car designs in his memory.
The path to his first design 50 years ago
Josef Anton Marquart was born in Winterthur in 1936. After completing his compulsory schooling, he graduated in engineering in his home town and completed a technical apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer at Gebrüder Sulzer AG. But his great passion was motorsport, and so from an early age he wanted to do nothing else in his life but design racing cars.
With a bit of luck and his father's business contacts, he got a job with the Scottish Omnibus Company, which took him to England and straight to the home of motorsport. And so it wasn't long before the enormous talent in Jo was recognized. During this time, he met the businessman and amateur racing driver Tim Willson. In his garage, the two motorsport fans then built Marquart's first racing car, the Wilson GT, 50 years ago with great enthusiasm and little expert knowledge. The car was driven by Alistair Mackintosh in 1966.
Eventually he got a job at Lotus, where he helped the legendary designers Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe build the Formula 1 world champion car Type 49B. He was also involved in the design of the Lotus 49C, in which Graham Hill won the world championship in 1968.
Highs and lows of motorsport - McLaren to Argo
Just one year later, at the age of 33, he became head designer at McLaren. There he developed vehicles such as the M9A, one of the most innovative four-wheel racing cars of the time, the M14 and M19 and was responsible for the M8 sports car, which dominated the lucrative CanAm series.
After the death of his good friend Bruce McLaren, he began to think about a smaller setup where he had more freedom in his work and design. Jo's desire for independence brought him together with people who gave him the design freedom he wanted. But their promises for a successful future did not match their financial means.
The single-seaters and sports cars of the Huron, GRD and Modus brands proved to be solid and competitive, very often even leading their class. But despite the successes, the sustainable development of the brands was repeatedly thwarted by money. Jo could not and would not take care of the financing. He saw himself as an engineer, not a businessman.
Jo's last company, Argo, in which he played a key role, had a similar fate. For the last 18 years of his life, he developed new models for Argo every year, initially single-seaters for Formula 3, Formula Atlantic, Formula Ford and Formula Super Vau, followed by highly successful sports cars for Group C2 and the American IMSA series. The early death of Jo Marquard meant the end of Argo.
Remembering the Swiss racing car designer
Jo had experienced all the highs and lows of racing in his life, great successes on the racetracks and financial crashes for his employers. When the victories failed to materialize, customers quickly turned away. Even worse were the economic crises, which hit racing as a hobby and luxury the hardest. Jo Marquart experienced all of this, but he never wanted to give up.
The recently published new website is intended to remind all motorsport fans of a Swiss man who played an important role at the heart of the action in his day. The texts were written by Jo's wife Jackie Marquart and Swiss motor racing connoisseur Hans Treml. The website was designed and programmed by Marc Rinderknecht.
Official website about Jo Marquart: jomarquart.com
