Dodgy Business

I can see why Christian Klien describes BMW's winter test hack as the ugliest F1 car he's ever seen. But there again, he's only 25!

BMW has adapted a 2008 car to the '09 aerodynamic regulations and irrespective of any mods that take place between now and Melbourne, it's clear that an '09 F1 car is going to be a very different animal.

It's the proportions - the wide front wing and the high, narrow rear one. And funnily enough the slick tyres serve only to reinforce an overall impression that the car is... well, a bit Mickey Mouse. It looks like something from the junior formulae. However perverse, perhaps the grooved rubber we've all got used to over the past 10 years had come to subconsciously signify 'Formula One'.

Rolf Stommelen (Eifelland 21 Ford) 1972 Spanish Grand Prix, Jarama © XPB

By the time the new season kicks off four months hence, we'll probably all be used to the new look. Whenever you see historic F1 cars today, the small front tyres and bulbous rears look strange, but you took them for granted in the seventies - it's how F1 cars were supposed to look.

But as for the ugliest F1 car of all time.... sorry Christian, but I don't think the Bee-Emm even makes it onto a 22-car grid.

These things are always subjective and often heavily influenced by the era when your passion took hold. I've got to admit that racing cars pre-dating the late sixties don't do an awful lot for me. Yes, I can appreciate a Maserati 250F as a thing of beauty, but big cigar shapes cars that were under-tyred just don't really resonate. In the sixties the sharknose Ferrari 156 was beautifully distinctive and cars like the Lotus 25 and 33 were attractive, but there wasn't a great deal of power and, again, spindly little tyres.

Things turned serious with the 3-litre formula of 1966 and late sixties cars like the Eagle-Weslake and Lotus 49 are still beautiful to behold. But the purity was short-lived. At the same time came wings and the need to dovetail ever-increased quests for downforce with the need to cool a 3-litre racing engine. It led to some of the worst abominations ever to disgrace a racing circuit. So here's 22 picks to knock the BMW off the grid.

Starting in 1971 there was the March 711 'dinner plate' or 'tea tray'. Call it what you will, it didn't look right and the following season's 721X was equally hideous. I'm going to cheat a bit and consider the Eiffeland-March separately.

The German team wanted its own car although designer Luigi Collani was basing his work around a 721 chassis. He came up with some novel aerodynamic bodywork but, ominously, the car boiled over when it was launched in the Eiffel mountains. In winter... The bodywork was hastily revised, culminating in the contraption that appeared in the 1972 Spanish GP. Not nice.

The Tecno PA123 and Ensign MN01 from '72 and '73 respectively were certainly not going to win any beauty contests. Tecno had built everything from karts to F2 cars by the time they moved up to F1 with Martini sponsorship but, quite clearly, this was a case of 'The Wrong One.' At least it sounded different with a flat 12, but that was its only saving grace.

Arturo Mezzario drives the Ferrari 312B3 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed © LAT

The famous marques weren't immune either. Quite how the gorgeous 1970 Ferrari 312B mutated into the 312B3 'Spazzaneve' or 'snowplough' would baffle even Sherlock Holmes.

Trojan's first attempt at a Formula 1 car, the TF103 of 1974 qualified last when it appeared at Jarama for the Spanish Grand Prix in the hands of Tim Schenken and it was no loss to aesthetics when it disappeared after Monza. From the same year the Amon FA 101 (the designation derived from the Kiwi himself and designer Gordon Fowell) was a bit of a shocker, especially the launch version with a crude-looking slab front wing.

The BRM P201 was a nasty looking thing in an era when tall air boxes left scope aplenty for nastiness. It could be done attractively, witness the Ferrari 312T, or it could look like a Ligier JS5...

Tyrrell's Project 34 six-wheeler might have been revolutionary in 1976 but it was also ugly. And it got worse. The bathtub version raced by Ronnie Peterson in First National City Bank colours was its nadir.

The Lotus 77 was not a pretty car but Colin Chapman had to be forgiven when he gave us, in 1978, the Type 79 with which Mario Andretti and Peterson dominated the championship. That was a gorgeous car completely at odds with so many others in a season which offered up no fewer than five contenders for the ugly car grid.

In alphabetical order, there was the ATS HS1 which really did make you ask what Jochen Mass was doing wearing his crash helmet in the bath. There was the Merzario A1, another horrendous-looking device but I'd better stop there in case I run into Autosport's F1 technical illustrator Giorgio Piola, who had something to do with it!

There was the Theodore TR1 and, arguable this one, the Tyrrell 008. The only thing that spoiled Niki Lauda's fantastic recovery drive in the Monaco GP that year was the fact that one of these finished in front of him, no disrespect to the late Patrick Depailler. Finally there was the Wolf WR5, which was no ATS but certainly a retrograde step from the pretty WR1 which won its debut race the previous season.

With the WR5 it was the cockpit surround radiator that was the problem but the concept was taken to new heights by the following season's Ensign N179, veritably the Gerard Depardieu of racing cars when it comes to nasal offensiveness.

Derek Daly (Ensign N179 Ford) 1979 South African Grand Prix, Kyalami © LAT

I loved the Ferrari 312T, the T2 and the T3 but when I saw the T4 I was nearly ill. Yes, I understood that ground effect was difficult when you had a flat 12 in the back but the T4 really did look like something that should have been built by Princess or Fairline. All it lacked were grab rails and a bathing platform. The strange thing was, it grew on you. That, no doubt, had a lot to do with the heroics Gilles Villeneuve performed in it. So we'll spare the T4 and include the T5 from 1980, an absolute shed that was beyond redemption, even in the hands of Gilles.

The Toleman TG181 'Belgrano' makes the list and for my final two, more recent choices, I'll take one each from those bastions of the British Establishment, McLaren and Williams.

If Mika Hakkinen's lap times weren't enough to frighten Nigel Mansell into having too big a backside for the '95 season, then a look at McLaren's MP4-10 will certainly have helped.

And what were Frank's lads thinking about with the walrus tusked Williams of 2004? Things were getting a bit tetchy with BMW's Mario Theissen by then and I reckon it was all part of a big plot to upset him further!

So go on Christian, look them up and see if you still think Munich's offering is all that bad!