Once upon a time it was not unusual to find American constructors on Grand Prix entry lists…

With February’s announcement of a new American constructor preparing to contest the Formula One World Championship in 2010 and subsequently landing a spot on the official FIA entry list, came a resurgence of American interest in the self-proclaimed “pinnacle of motorsport.” All that depends, of course, on whether or not there is an F1 series next year, but in our modern world of instant gratification and short attention spans it can be easy to forget that 35 years ago there were three American outfits on the F1 grid.

The overwhelming majority of the teams then may have been British, but with three marques flying the Stars and Stripes, the USA ranked a distant second. Of course, there had been cars from American constructors on Grand Prix grids before, most notably Dan Gurney’s Eagles (see sidebar), but only the English and the Italians had ever mounted as many as three efforts at once.