ARDEX-BMW S80
A GROUND-BREAKER THAT NEVER RACED
The strange-looking Ardex S80 Group 6 car powered by a BMW straight six can claim to be the first ground-effect sports-prototype, though not the first to race. In fact, it never did race, failing to make the grid on its one appearance, at Le Mans in 1981, but designer Max Sardou did pave the way for the exploitation of underbody aerodynamics in sportscar racing.
Frenchman Sardou had completed his doctoral thesis in 1973 on the potential of ground effect in motor racing, a couple of years before the first experiments at Team Lotus that led on to the ground-breaking 78 and 79 Formula 1 cars. He shopped his ideas around but couldn’t find any takers. So he set about building his own machine to showcase his theories. The result was the Ardex, its name created, he says, “by randomly pulling letters out of a hat”. There was no connection with the marque of the same name that built cycle-cars and microcars either side of the Second World War.
Not exactly a looker, the Ardex incorporated a number of innovations: there was trick suspension – control of bump and roll stiffness were separated – while the set-up was undertaken on what might be the first simulation computer programme used in motor racing. But it was in the aero department where the S80 was really different. The 3.5-litre engine sat alongside the driver. “It’s easier to have the ground-effect tunnels if you don’t have a bloody big engine at the back,” says Sardou.
