Elf Scan 17: Matra MS 80 Grand Prix Car

After a solid season in 1968 with the MS 10, Matra-Ford went all the way in 1969 with the Championship-winning MS 80, piloted by Jackie Stewart.  In the great action shot above, he's shown airborne at the Nurburgring.

Elf Scan 16: Matra MS 10 Grand Prix Car

The MS 10 was the first true F1 car designed by Matra. The French team was actually managed by Englishman Ken Tyrell, with Jackie Stewart as lead driver. Matra were in the midst of developing their own proprietary V12 engine, but sourced the Ford Cosworth DFV as an interim powerplant. In the end, the Ford V8 was to prove itself a reliable workhorse, powering Stewart to his championship the following season, in 1969.

Elf Scan 13: Jean-Pierre Jabouille

Jean-Pierre Jabouille started his racing career in the Renault 8 Gordini single-make series.  After a promising start, he scraped enough cash together to purchase a Brabham Formula 3 car, and was the only independent entry to qualify for that year's Monaco F3 race. After varied success he joined the Alpine team, racing for then in F3, F2 as well as sports cars.  When this photo was taken, his glory days in F1 and Le Mans racing were still ahead of him.  He is still with us today, and was more recently head of Peugeot Sport before starting his own racing team.

Moment of Smoking Zen

The Eddie Irvine video down below reminded me that at Suzuka in 1993, The Ligier of Martin Brundle had one of the prettiest sponsor liveries in F1 history.  The abstracted "Gitanes" cigarette paint scheme took over the whole car and the effect was utterly beautiful while partially obscuring the brand name in keeping with the ever-tightening tobacco sponsorship laws of the early 90s.  For sheer purity of form and design, you can't really beat the F1 cars from 1990-94.  That was when Ferraris were still almost completely crimson red, McLarens looked like a Marlboro packet, and who can forget the first year of Rothmans sponsorship on the Williams-Renault?

Elf Scan 9: Matra's 4WD experiment - the MS 84

At the same time that Jackie Stewart was dominating the 1969 Formula One championship in the Matra MS 80, the French team was also experimenting with a 4 wheel drive sister car, known as the MS 84.  Team Lotus was also experimenting with 4WD at the time with the Lotus 63, and also using the same Ford Cosworth V8 in their Lotus 49Bs. Much like Lotus, Matra ultimately found that 4WD added weight and complexity that did not pay dividends in terms of performance. It was the conventional RWD MS 80 that ultimately gave Stewart his first F1 championship.  The MS 84 is pictured above at what appears to be the Montlhery Autodrome near Paris.