hit foR six

So, Philip had already built a 1977 wide-body P34 based on a kit from George Turner. It is the lower of these two cars, the upper being the latest Scalextric release that also raced that year, shown for comparison.

“For this project I have produced a version of the Tyrrell Six-Wheeler, or to give it its correct name, Project 34 (P34). Perhaps one of the most distinctive F1 cars ever, it was somewhat underrepresented in the slot car market for a long time. The original Spanish Scalextric and later SCX versions that have been available over the years, was based upon the prototype version of the car that didn’t actually race. However, realising this gap in the market, Scalextric recently released versions of the cars that competed during 1976 and early in the 1977 season.

For my project, I wanted to make a representation of the car that raced later diuring 1977. This had a wider front wheel track and is probably the ugliest version of the car! But before I describe how I made the model, here are a few facts about the real P34. The key ideas behind the car’s design were to increase front grip and reduce the drag and air disturbance caused by normal sized front wheels by making them smaller and almost

After opening his (Match) box Philip set about cutting away parts of the shell as supplied, into the car that raced later in 1977. Here you can see the much-modified body now in a coat of white primer. A custom Plasticard chassis sits alongside ready to take a Policar F1 combined motor/gearbox mount and rear axle assembly.

Here we have the Policar assembly fitted to the chassis along with the part-Matchbox part-scratch built front axle unit. The body was first painted gloss white, masked off once dry and treated to some coats of blue paint very close to the colour used on the real car.

The chassis, now complete with interior, driver, and rear wing. Ronnie Peterson still used a peak on his full-face helmet. This was sourced from SRC and painted in his national colours of his home country, Sweden.

The much modded plastic kit now looking the part on the track.

recessed within the bodywork. This would improve airflow across the car and therefore its aerodynamic efficiency. However, to still have enough front tyre rubber in contact with the road on the smaller front wheels, an extra set was required. Hence four front wheels which is, to this day, an iconic image for many F1 enthusiasts (such as myself).

The P34 was raced by the Tyrrell team in 1976 and 1977. It was successful straight away with Patrick Depailler qualifying third in its first race, eleven places ahead of his team-mate Jody Scheckter, who was still driving the four wheeled Tyrrell 007 as there was not a P34 ready for him. In the car’s fourth race, the Swedish Grand Prix, Scheckter, who was by now driving the P34, put the six-wheeler on pole and then led Depailler home in a one-two finish.

In spite of this good start, the car never really fulfilled its promise. Brake problems were a consistent issue, but the main problem seems to be the small front tyres. Goodyear continued to develop their normal sized tyres throughout the 1976 and 77 seasons but the smaller tyres used on the P34 were not improved. This meant that the car became increasingly unbalanced, thereby reducing that front-end grip. Also, as the smaller front wheels had to rotate at a faster rate than the standard larger rear tyres, they were prone to overheating. The smaller front tyre circumference meant that for every single rotation of the rear tyres, the front ones rotated 1.6 times. This meant that when the rear tyres were at 200mph, the front ones were running at the equivalent to 320mph!

In an attempt to address these issues, two new chassis with revised bodywork and rear wings were built for the 1977 season. However, these new cars were bigger and heavier than the 1976 versions and performance was not improved. For the sixth and seventh races of the 1977 season (Monaco and Belgium) the team reverted to the original 1976 style of cars, but this did not improve their results. Further changes were made to the 1977 specification cars which included extra radiators, the front wheels being pushed outside of the bodywork thereby increasing air flow to the tyres to try and cool them, and extra air ducts fitted for the brakes. However, all this worked against the aerodynamic principles that were part of the original concept and they failed to improve performance. All these issues meant that for the 1978 season, Tyrrell returned to a normal 4-wheel layout with the 008 car.

Other teams such as March, Ferrari and Williams all built prototype six-wheelers in the mid-70s and early 80s. However, these had four driven wheels at the rear and due to technical and regulation issues were never raced in a Grand Prix. The Tyrrell team are, therefore, the only outfit to have raced in, and won, a Grand Prix with a car that has more than four wheels. In the early 80s, F1 cars with more than four wheels were banned and so this record is likely to always remain theirs!

A frontal comparison between the Matchbox (left) and GTM versions (right).

From the underside they both use the complete Poilcar F1 mount assembly with a scratch built plastic chassis. However, they do differ in the front axle and guide flag mounting.

Top down and you can clearly see the difference in the two cars, how many of us even knew that?

Back to the model...

I have previously made a version of the midseason 1977 car using a George Turner’s body shell. However, the late 1977 version required surgery to the cockpit cowling and the nose section. I used a 1/32 Matchbox kit as my basis and set about cutting and remodelling the body. (See photos for the marked-up areas that needed to be removed.)

I used a Policar motor and axle assembly and made the main sections of the chassis myself. The guide mounting was the 3D printed unit that came from Pendles as part of the Policar assembly. This had to be heavily reduced in height and axle mounts fitted for the front wheels. I used some elements of the Matchbox kit for the internals of the side pods, driver’s seat and dashboard/steering wheel assembly.

I created the extended width front axle assemblies using a combination of plastic-card and parts from the kit. The front wheels are from the old SCX version of the car, but with new longer axles fitted. The driver is an SRC figure. While the helmet is slightly over-scale, they are one of the few (or only ones?) who sell figures with the peaked helmets and as I wanted this model to be driven by Ronnie Peterson, that was the type of helmet I needed.

I primed, painted, masked and painted again the modified body and also the chassis. I fitted the new front radiators and made the front diffuser from plastic-card. The windscreen

This interesting shot put together by Philip shows all the different versions of the Tyrrell P34.

is acetate plastic that I carefully glued to the body and then covered the join with the windscreen decal. The car decals are from Indycal and Pattos and the helmet decals from Ostorero. In the photographs I have shown the build process and the chassis details. I have also shown the two 1977 version cars that I have made side-by-side, so that the differences between the early and late season cars can be seen.

I hope you liked seeing the build process of one of my favourite F1 cars and the photos of both 1977 versions. Just for fun, I have included a photo showing the evolution of the Tyrrell P34 in slot car form. The prototype shape is an SCX car, the 1976 and 1977 Belgium Grand Prix versions are from Scalextric, and the revised 1977 cars are my builds.” n

Until next time, thanks for reading - Philip

A nice project executed well, and to be honest this looks as good as any RTR model classic F1 slot car that you could buy – Well done Mr Prestage, keep up the great work – Ed