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A die-cast of Vittorio Jano's Tipo B Alfa showing the 'split' propshaft, designed to seat the driver lower in the car. Introduced in 1932, the Tipo B was the world's first single-seater GP car, and was especially successful in Nuvolari's hands.

Older chaps might recall Jenks going on, ad nauseam, in his explanation as to why the Tipo B is NOT a P3.
 

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· Al Schwartz
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Jenks with Marcel Masuy at Solitude, 1952, competing with their Norton-Watsonian. This is just one reason why Jenks was so infuriatingly intransigent in his views about safety in motor sport.
Never did anything like that but it called to mind my days of hanging on by my toes over the rail of a 17' racing dinghy. A beam reach in 20 kts of breeze was a drenching experience.

EM

EM
 

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A die-cast of Vittorio Jano's Tipo B Alfa showing the 'split' propshaft, designed to seat the driver lower in the car. Introduced in 1932, the Tipo B was the world's first single-seater GP car, and was especially successful in Nuvolari's hands.

Older chaps might recall Jenks going on, ad nauseam, in his explanation as to why the Tipo B is NOT a P3.
That's an intriguing transmission system.

Did they have a diff at the forward end of the propshafts, or were there two diffs, one at the end of each propshaft, or no diff at all, or even a split rear axle?
 

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That's an intriguing transmission system.

Did they have a diff at the forward end of the propshafts, or were there two diffs, one at the end of each propshaft, or no diff at all, or even a split rear axle?
According to my surfing the Type A had two engines, two gearboxes and two drive shafts. So the Type B dual drive shafts appear to be a carry over?
 

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I don't think so. The arrangements were quite different in that the Tipo A had a separate clutch, gearbox, propshaft and final drive unit behind each engine with the propshafts running parallel so that the final drive units were almost touching. After the second race a freewheel system was fitted behind each gearbox to help cornering as there was no differential.

The Tipo B had a clutch, gearbox and diff fixed to the engine with a dead space between the short half shafts. No one knows why this arrangement was chosen. It is widely written that it was to get the driver seated lower, but study of the car shows this not to be the case. The driver sits as high as in any of the conventional cars. There may have been a marginal saving in unsprung weight by having the diff. as a sprung part, but then there were two propshafts and final drives which would appear to negate that saving.

Both cars were successful.
 

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The debut of the March 701 was at the South African Grand Prix when Jackie Stewart and Chris Amon set identical times to share the front row of the grid.

David
 

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I was talking race debut for the South African GP. If you are talking press launch then the works car was photographed at the factory with Granatelli in attendance but the press launch itself was with the works car and the Tyrrell run car at Silverstone where both cars ran on track.

David
 
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