Over the years many designers have created dominant cars in F1 only to see their star's wane. I was wondering what has happened to these guys after the bright lights of F1 have dimmed so here are details on a few I can remember:
Gordon Murray - After designing some beautiful cars at Brabham & McLaren (and of course the peerless Mclaren F1 road car) GM now runs Gordon Murray Design an automotive design agency working on the T.25 mini(ature) car, amongst other things.
Gerard Ducarouge - The man who made some odd looking Ligier's before producing the fantastic JS11 & the follow up JS11/15 then moved on to Lotus, producing the Lotus 94T in 5 weeks! After some race winning success at Lotus, especially with Senna driving, he moved on to Larousse and then back to Ligier. After F1 he went back to Matra (where he started his career) and was recently involved in desiging the Venturi Fetish, the worlds first electric sports car. If you have nearly half a million Euros lying about one can be yours.
John Barnard - John served his "apprenticeship" at Lola and Mclaren before teaming up with Ron Dennis at Project 4. When Dennis took over the Mclaren team Barnard designed the carbon fibre MP4/1 and changed F1 forever. Barnard moved on to Ferrari in 1987 and introduced semi-automatic gearboxes to F1. He moved on to Benneton and designed the championship winning B194. After falling out with Benetton Barnard was involved in desiging an F1 Toyota for TOM's, with Arrows during Tom Walkinshaw's tenure, ending his involvement in F1 at Prost. In 2003 Barnard became technical director of Kenny Roberts Moto GP team. In 2008 Barnard sold his design agency B3 technologies and now designs furniture with Terence Woodgate(!).
Tony Southgate - Southgate's first F1 designs were at BRM in the early 70's. He then moved on to Shadow and went to Arrows with Jackie Oliver. He must be one of the few designers to have been sued for copyright infringments when the Arrows A1 was found by the courts to be a copy of the Shadow DN9. Southgate penned the A1, A2 and A3 for Arrows before going freelance. This led to work at Theodore, Ensign and Osella before designing Jaguar sportscars for Tom Walkinshaw racing. Southgate left Jaguar in 1991 and has since designed sportscars for Ferrari, Toyota and others.
I will add more as I think of them. Bro - not sure if this is the right forum, feel free to move it to a more appropriate place.
Gordon Murray - After designing some beautiful cars at Brabham & McLaren (and of course the peerless Mclaren F1 road car) GM now runs Gordon Murray Design an automotive design agency working on the T.25 mini(ature) car, amongst other things.
Gerard Ducarouge - The man who made some odd looking Ligier's before producing the fantastic JS11 & the follow up JS11/15 then moved on to Lotus, producing the Lotus 94T in 5 weeks! After some race winning success at Lotus, especially with Senna driving, he moved on to Larousse and then back to Ligier. After F1 he went back to Matra (where he started his career) and was recently involved in desiging the Venturi Fetish, the worlds first electric sports car. If you have nearly half a million Euros lying about one can be yours.
John Barnard - John served his "apprenticeship" at Lola and Mclaren before teaming up with Ron Dennis at Project 4. When Dennis took over the Mclaren team Barnard designed the carbon fibre MP4/1 and changed F1 forever. Barnard moved on to Ferrari in 1987 and introduced semi-automatic gearboxes to F1. He moved on to Benneton and designed the championship winning B194. After falling out with Benetton Barnard was involved in desiging an F1 Toyota for TOM's, with Arrows during Tom Walkinshaw's tenure, ending his involvement in F1 at Prost. In 2003 Barnard became technical director of Kenny Roberts Moto GP team. In 2008 Barnard sold his design agency B3 technologies and now designs furniture with Terence Woodgate(!).
Tony Southgate - Southgate's first F1 designs were at BRM in the early 70's. He then moved on to Shadow and went to Arrows with Jackie Oliver. He must be one of the few designers to have been sued for copyright infringments when the Arrows A1 was found by the courts to be a copy of the Shadow DN9. Southgate penned the A1, A2 and A3 for Arrows before going freelance. This led to work at Theodore, Ensign and Osella before designing Jaguar sportscars for Tom Walkinshaw racing. Southgate left Jaguar in 1991 and has since designed sportscars for Ferrari, Toyota and others.
I will add more as I think of them. Bro - not sure if this is the right forum, feel free to move it to a more appropriate place.
