S2 Race Car (FIA Appendix K)

[Mecky]

Hi there,

I found this Forum yesterday  and want to show other Europa-enthusiasts our little race car. It is an 1969 S2 Type 54 built after the FIA historic reglement (Appendix K) and raced on a historic endurance racing series in Germany, which is called "FHR Langstreckencup". It is the world's biggest historic endurance competition. Everything on this car was made by ourselves, besides the paint. My father, my two brothers and me are the drivers and the mechanics of our Europa.

If you want to know something more about our S2 and the cup, you can have a look at our website http://www.bauhaus-kremer-racing.de.to . Of course you can also ask me in the Forum.

I would be glad to read what you think about it.

Best regards
Stefan

[LotusJoe]

  Nice car!

[EuropaTC]

Hi Stefan,

I've just had a scan through your website and it's very impressive.  Although I shall never race or build something like that I still like to see the engineering and imagination you guys show when you're building race cars.

One question though - why no front spoiler ?  Is it because the rules don't allow it and force you to stick with the original profile or just that your revised suspension, etc, make it irrelevant ?  I ask because back in the day all the contemporary road tests made a big thing about how it improved stability by reducing front end lift at speed.

The drivetrain looks very different from stock though, presumably the regulations you race under allow you a free rein there ?

Brian

[Mecky]

Hi Brian,

we would love to use a front spoiler or the flaps, which some Type 47 had, but if you want to use aerodynamic devices in historic racing, you have to proof that a car, which was the same like yours (Europa S2, not even TC or 47 is possible) used exactly this aerodynamic device on an international racing event in the years of your period (1966-1971). We were not able to proof it...

We are allowed to use other drive shafts and so on. Everything is on photos in our FIA Historic Technical Passport, too.

[cal44]

Stefan,

I went to the your website.  Very enjoyable.  Love the Lotus and am found of Porsche as well.
I had to laugh when I saw the frame on stands....over what appears to be "hand knotted" rugs......I usually use cardboard.

Mein Deutsch ist nicht gut............so I will stick with English


Mike

[Jas]

Hi Stefan

It is a very nice looking car you have there.
I didn't know that the Europa had been homologated,
if you have the homologation would you mind posting a copy of it here in the forum.

How competitativ is the Europa in this class?

Cheers
Jannik

[EuropaTC]

Hi Stefan,

It's a shame about the spoiler, from what I recall all the road testers thought it was a significant improvement at speed as far as stability went. 

I have a collection of old road test books and thought it worthwhile taking a look through because back in those days there seemed to be quite a few tuning options around.  I found that Hermes offered what they called an "aerofoil" for the princely sum of £4.98 in 1971 for the S2, and Bob Else also offered a front air dam on his 1970 tuning package but both of these seemed to be for the home enthusiast market. And of course I couldn't find any pictures of either car conversion in a race, although if they were offered to enthusiasts there must have been a few racers with similar outfits on their cars ?

Those rules are strange really, you can modify the driveline (and those wheels look massive ! ) and yet not add something as simple as a front spoiler. Still, "them's the rules" and I suppose if everyone started adding front & rear wings then they wouldn't look like historic cars any more.

[Mecky]

Hi Stefan

It is a very nice looking car you have there.
I didn't know that the Europa had been homologated,
if you have the homologation would you mind posting a copy of it here in the forum.

How competitativ is the Europa in this class?

Cheers
Jannik

Hi,
The Europa S2 was homologated with 1470cc engine as group 3 (close-to-production GT Car) car. But we have the 1565cc engine. Because of that, this homologation is not relevant for us. We had a blessing in disguise with a former Europa Driver from Bavaria, who raced an Europa Renault on an Prototype-race in Zeltweg (Austria) in 1968. He gave us a few pics and the entry-list. Because you can see the cross-flow-head on this pics, we could get an FIA Historic Technical Passport as Two-Seater-Racing-Car 1600. We would prefer to be an "ordinary" GT 1600, but this is not possible with our Renault 1565cc crossflow engine.  Our direct classmates are Porsche 906, Porsche 907 or Chevron B16. We could only succeed in this class, if some others do not finish. But that's better than not being allowed to drive...
But we can compete with lots of other cars, which are olso in our races.
In Hockenheim (GER) we were able to drive laps, which were as fast as the fastest 1600cc cars and even better than some cars with larger displacement.
Driving this car is really great!!! Maybe in one or two years, when we exactly know, how to drive this car and when we learned about setting it up, we can reach a top 10 overall result in our competition. In Hockenheim we finished as 27th of about 50 cars and 3rd in class, but this was our first "real" race, which our car "survived".

Stefan