V8-powered Formula 3000 Cars Singing on Hillclimb Roads!

One of the coolest things you can see during a hillclimb race is for sure the line-up of old Formula 3000 cars. And this video is a compilation they made putting together some of the clips recorded from 2016 to 2019 during various hillclimb races attended in Italy.

You can generally find different eras of F3000s, both V6 or V8-powered but for this video they decided to only group the V8 ones. Engines are generally from Zytek, Judd, Cosworth or Mugen and this leads to some of the best sounding cars the mountains have ever heard.

Being old cars developed for track use, the current owners/drivers usually introduce aerodynamic updates to make them more competitive and suitable for these mountain courses.

Sometimes these updates are pretty much extreme giving them the look of prototypes than actual Formula cars (see those Reynards at 0:50 and 1:04 or the purple Lola B99/50 with the rear wings taken from an actual Osella FA30 prototype).

In particular the cars you see in this video are:

– Lola B02/50 (the light blue/yellow one at the beginning of the video): It was the only car allowed in the International Formula 3000 starting from the 2002 season, replacing the Lola B99/50, and used in the last three seasons of that championship, then replaced by the GP2 Series. It was powered by a Zytek 3.0-litre V8 with around 470 hp.

– Lola B06/51 (the white one at 0:32): also known as “FN06”, it was a Formula Nippon car used in the Japanese series from 2006 to 2008. It was originally powered by Honda HF386E or Toyota RV8J engines. The one you see in this video has been slightly modified to accomodate a Judd 3.0 V8 with around 520 hp.

– Lola B99/50 (the three red ones at 1:35, 2:34 and 4:11, plus the purple car at 0:14): This Lola was conceived as the only car allowed in the International Formula 3000 starting from the 1999 season. It was used for three seasons in that championship, until 2001, before being replaced by the Lola B02/50. Engine is a Zytek 3.0 V8.

– Reynard 2KL (White and red car at 1:03, in 2016, or 3:25, in 2018): this chassis was introduced in Formula Nippon in 2000 and used until 2002. It was originally powered by a Mugen 3.0 V8 engine which was kept at first for hillclimb use on the car you see here. It was later replaced with a Cosworth 3.0 V8 tuned and modified by Armaroli Sport. In 2016 it featured that Formula E-ish aero kit on the front wheels but it was later removed because the weight of the additional parts wasn’t justified by any major increase in speed or aero load. It was so modified to a more traditional (yet bigger) front wing for the following years. In this video that 2KL should have both the Mugen (when it features the Formula E-ish kit) and the Cosworth when the aero was modified.

– Reynard 01L (black and red one at 0:50, in 2016, or 3:14, in 2018): it was one of the Formula Nippon cars used in the Japanese series in 2001 and 2002. As the previous Reynard 2KL, the car was subjected to the same aero upgrades and mods. The only difference is that the orignal engine was swapped way before 2016 with a Cosworth 3.0 V8 on this 01L, so in this video it always features the Cosworth. You can notice the sound difference at 6:52 of the Cosworth compared to the Mugen at 11:45 on the Reynard 2KL.

– Reynard 97D (the white one at 1:17 or 3:40): a 1997 chassis used in both Formula Nippon and the Australian Formula Holden championships. Even in this case I think the original engine has been changed. In fact the car you see in this video is powered by a Judd 3.0 V8 while originally the 97D should have been with a Mugen V8 for the Japanese series or a V6 in the Formula Holden championship.










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