The Connew PC1: F1’s most unlikely competitor

Connew’s racing story is a relatively short one. The car made it to two F1 Grands Prix, a handful of non-Championship races and three Formula 5000 events over two years. The PC1 scored no points and didn’t even finish a race, but scratch beneath the statistics and you find the work of a young designer committed to making his ambition come true. 

Peter Connew was never a big F1 fan, yet he found himself in his early 20s working for John Surtees. When the 1964 World Champion decided he wanted to build his own car, Connew was set to work, and the TS7 was prepared in time for the 1970 season opener in South Africa.

“That day they were taking it to the airport,” Connew recalled, “it was a lovely sunny day like this. The sun caught all the shiny bits on [the car] and the bright red [livery], and I thought ‘I’m going to build my own car.’ That’s how this all started.”

Forget starting small, it was always going to be an F1 car. A matter of familiarity over simplicity, Connew had only worked on F1 cars, so that was what he knew best. “It was relatively easy work. You were copying but maybe innovating a little bit. Things like the suspension were very commonly designed, so it wasn't hard work to do it.

However, Connew’s “little bit” of innovation would prove to cause some issues. “There's a couple of things on here where I tried to be a little bit different and that was a mistake,” but before he could learn those lessons, the first issue he faced was money: “We didn’t have any!” Boor exclaimed.

In the early 1970s a new engine cost over 200 times Connew’s weekly earnings, so an advert for a second-hand 1969 McLaren engine was a lifesaver.  When he called to enquire about the £3,250 item, it was Phil Kerr who answered the phone and was willing to accept the £1,000 Connew could afford on the promise he’d pay the rest when he could.

The money came from their driver, François Migault, with whom an agreement was signed to do five Grands Prix for £10,000. “It gave [Connew] £1,000 to go and buy the gearbox and pay for the wheels,” said Boor.

France was the intended destination for the PC1’s first race. En route to the Circuit de Charade, the team travelled through Migault’s hometown of Le Mans, where the driver suggested they stop off to do some testing. “The problem was,” Connew explained, “the truck that the car was in broke down. The engine blew up. So, we couldn't get to the French Grand Prix.”

The second attempt was a trip to Brands Hatch, where Migault did qualify for the British Grand Prix, albeit as the slowest on the grid. But a suspension failure ensured he never made the start of the race. As Boor detailed: “At the end of practice […] all of a sudden we were aware the car was banging on the ground and what had happened was a coil spring, they had been made with the wrong material.”

The formidable Nürburgring was up next, and the team travelled to the continent at Migault’s insistence, despite not having the paperwork for entry. “He said, ‘Oh, don't worry about that, we'll still go.’ So we did go,” said Connew, “but they wouldn't let him race, I think because he was too inexperienced.” For Boor the decision was “absolutely the best thing in hindsight because he'd have probably had an accident.”

“What happened to the car in the next race, when it did race — if that had happened at the Nürburgring [he’d have] finished up in the trees or down a ravine or something like that.”

That next race was in Austria, where Migault qualified at the back of the grid. Having made up a handful of places early on in the Grand Prix, the Frenchman swerved towards the barriers at the start/finish straight after another suspension failure, though brought the car under control without suffering any damage.

This was a moment Connew reflected on, where his desire for innovation got ahead of him. “[The rear suspension] was too complicated. Had it been a more conventional suspension, I don't think we'd have had the trouble.”

Two non-Championship races in 1972 were the PC1’s final entries into F1, starting with August’s Rothmans 50,000 at Brands Hatch, a Formula Libre race with a lucrative £50,000 prize pot. According to Boor, “the idea was, ‘if we take part in that with a Formula 1 car we could finish quite well’,” but the engine failed during practice and Migault was unable to qualify.

The same circuit hosted the World Championship Victory Race in October, by which point the Connew car had been fixed up and painted dark blue and red courtesy of West Sussex business owner Charlie Purley. Purley contacted Connew and offered to pay for repairs if his son, David, could drive it.

“To cut a long story short,” Boor summarised, “it broke down on the warm-up lap for that race, and David basically got out of it, walked away and that's where, as a Formula 1 car, it ended.”

But that was not quite the end of the Connew team. “Many Formula 1 cars in those days were built to also take a second type of engine, a Formula 5000 engine,” said Connew. “The design of the Surtees that I'd done was such that it was a Formula 1 car for John Surtees, but also a Formula 5000 car for sale.”

Applying this knowledge, Connew converted his car to F5000 spec in 1973, but the same old hindrance reared its head. “It did a couple of races, not successfully; again, we had no money.” Failure to start at Mallory Park, not qualifying for a race at Brands Hatch and retirement from the season finale marked the end of the PC1’s competitive life. But not for want of trying.

Nostalgia fueled the restored PC1 on show at the Festival of Speed. Connew and Boor started to tidy up parts of their car in 2014, but a chance to speak in front of an audience about their project got the word out that the PC1 was being restored.

“[It was] not as you see today,” Connew stated. “It was dented; the paint was dishevelled. So, we took all that with two front wheels, but no back wheels to the show, and we were interviewed by Doug Nye.”

When the pair were first invited to Goodwood in 2017, Nye was the one to lend them the engine and gearbox they were lacking, while Connew’s son, Christopher, made the wing. In terms of originality, the chassis, airbox and nose remain the same, and Connew had a stroke of luck sourcing replacement mirrors: “I was looking on eBay for old style mirrors from the ‘70s and I found the exact pair that we had, 40 years before.”

“There are bits missing, there should be an oil tank on the back. Barry talked about making it in time for [the Festival of Speed] but we haven't had time because we're both retired gentlemen now, and we can't do things like we used to do before.”

All efforts are worth the reception, though. “We have guys come in here and say, ‘I haven't seen this car for 50 years, I never thought I'd ever see it again’. We're pleased that it's visually like it was.”

Connew reckons the livery is what attracts people to the PC1 in the paddocks. After all, seeing the bright red Surtees car in the sun was the spark of his own inspiration. Connew’s car always “had to be red,” but it was Migault’s involvement and his sponsorship by Shell that added in the yellow. Migault passed away in 2012 and never saw his car restored, but Connew reflected on his importance to the team. “Had it not been for François, if he’d never come along, we wouldn’t be here today. I think that’s fair to say.”  

As for the car’s future, finances prevent the PC1 from being restored to a condition to run, so Connew desires to loan it to a museum. He is, however, insistent not to give up ownership, like some enquiring locations have required. “My family’s going to inherit it when I go,” he affirmed, after being joined in the Festival of Speed paddocks by his infant grandson, Hugo.

Until then, Connew and Boor are content to just wait and see what opportunities arise for them and their beloved car. While they do, it will stay in what the former only disclosed as “a secret place,” to which Boor followed, “and there it’ll sit until who knows when.”

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Goodwood photography by Joe Harding. Other images courtesy of Getty Images.