1967 BRM H-16

The history of Grand Prix racing is dotted with great and successful winning designs, and is equally littered with no-hopers—the Life Grand Prix, the Bellasi, Merzario, Coloni, Derrington-Francis—and then there were all those with potential which never quite made it: ATS, Beatrice, DeTomaso, Fittipaldi and many, many more. Some of the small outfits made some superb cars…Eagle and the Weslake V-12…and some big teams made some real losers…Ferrari and the 312B2 and Lotus and the Type 80.

BRM probably had as checkered a history as any racing team ever, creating immensely complex and totally unmanageable cars, then winning the World Championship and finally going back to producing some awful machines before closing down. BRM had moments of glory and moments of despair…in about equal measure. Just when the future looked rosy, something would come along to bring back the doldrums. The H-16 project was one of those somethings. Amazingly, when it all looked hopeless, the proverbial phoenix would again rise from the ashes, as did the V-12 Grand Prix winners of 1970–71. However, the H-16 was never going to be a phoenix, and with all that weight, could hardly rise from the paddock never mind the ashes. Yet, it somehow attained a sort of iconic status…the glorious failures that so many racing people love to hate, and then miss greatly when they are gone.