You don’t see it in the F1 nowadays, but in the seventies small teams constructed in a shed a F1 car around a Cosworth engine and a Hewland gearbox. Remember names like Bellasi, LEC, Connew, Trojan, Lyncar, Apollon ( and more).
How difficult can it be to prepare a car to race in Formula 1 thought Japanese engineers Kenji Mimura and Masao Ono, both 26 years, when in 1973 they set out to create the Maki Engineering team. Ono had worked for SARD (Sigma Automotive Racing design) on the Sigma MC73 that raced in the 24h Le Mans. The two companions kept their project and their design very quiet for a long time.
Their first Maki F101 was built based on the Mana 11 F. Junior car. The project was financed by the owner of M’S Brain, an investment company from Tokyo based on the popular pyramid system.
In October they constructed four monocoque cars in an apartment in the Shibuya area. The first chassis, the F101/001 was ready beginning of 1974 and shown to the Japanese Autosport magazine. The car featured an innovative enormous bodywork that covered the whole car. They said it was the result of their aerodynamic research.
Under the guidance of Ono, the owners of the team, even when the money got tight because of the oil crisis and the worldwide critics on the pyramid finance system, decided to go ahead. First plan: hire a very experienced driver. They set their sights on New Zealander Howden Ganley, who had competed in F1 for BRM, Iso-Marlboro and March. When contacted, Ganley thought it was a prank. But after a meeting at Earls Court Road, he accepted the offer since he found it attractive to be part of a team that said it had "a lot of financial backing, four chassis and eight engines." During the talk it was decided that 001 stayed in Japan; the three other cars would be shipped to England.
The first obstacle that Maki Engineering encountered was finding a headquarters in England. Luckily for them, their pilot rented them the workshop he had taken over from Frank Williams In Slough. There were three monocoques there but only one engine and one Hewland gearbox. So only chassis 002 was assembled.
That was the car that was presented by “Maki Engineering Co Ltd” officially on march 15th 1974 at the Carlton Tower hotel in London, painted all white with some large red dots, representing the Japanese flag. The car had a huge windshield, gigantic side air intakes, a huge engine cover and a voluminous nose. Doug Nye wrote in his story: “I am certain that all journalists had respect for the enthusiasm of the Maki group, but it is clear that they have an absolute innocence about the difficulties they will be facing. Even from the superficial examination of the car, it is clear that it is crap. I know that Ganley tried very hard to keep his foot into F1, but I hope he will be able to canalise their enthusiasm and come up with a better car in the next months.”
Ganley did some testing two weeks later. In the testing at Goodwood and Silverstone (see photo) and it was found that the F101/002 was far from being a good Formula 1 car. It was slow on the straights, did not respond well in the corners and the engine cooling was insufficient due to the enveloped outside. The car was 150 kg heavier than a regular F1 car.
Participating in F1 races got postponed and postponed. Ganley did not understand it and after a big row and a newly designed bodywork, it was decided that the first race would be the British GP at Brands Hatch. A new F101B/002, weighting 30 kg less, became ready for its debut.
When Howden arrived at the circuit, no team there. He send a friend to the headquarters and he reported back: “they just sitting here, drinking thee. They won’t come.” When the Maki car finally arrived in a large truck before the second and last training day, Ganley could not qualify the car. he finished 32nd in the classification, four seconds behind the pole position of the Austrian Niki Lauda (Ferrari) and was one of the 10 drivers who were left without starting in that race that only allowed 25 participants.
Maki Engineering tried to get revenge at the German GP, but it was worse. During the first lap of qualifying the suspension of the F101B broke on the bumps of the circuit and that caused a serious accident that cost Ganley severe injuries to both legs that ended his career.
The heavy damaged F101/2 is repaired with the third monocoque, but there is no more money. All will be stored in a hangar at Basingstoke and no more F1 in 1974. That was what everybody tought.
A new sponsor, Japanese firm Citizen watches, got the team going again for 1975. The car was painted blue and prepared in the drive-way of a house in Maidenhead, where all team members stayed. The car was now named : F101C. The only difference from the other cars were bigger radiators and a switch to Goodyear tyres. The team had contacted Dave Walker, who had run for Lotus in 1972 and made him come to Zolder, but they never showed up. New driver, the Japanese Hiroshi Fushida, did a test drive at Silverstone and was off to Zandvoort for the Dutch GP (see photo below). Fortunately, there were only 25 cars, something that would allow him to run without problems despite the 13 seconds that separated Fushida from poleman Lauda. However, the weekend was another disaster. This time because of the engine. It broke after overrevving it and without a replacement Maki lost another opportunity to debut in the F1.
Mimura and Ono refused to give up, although they did drop the disastrous Fushida after a non-qualification in England and replaced him with the Englishman Tony Trimmer, former F3 champion. But he could not get the F101C among the 25 qualified to start for the German and Austrian GP (suspension failure). The only positive thing that year was the 13th place, six laps behind the winner, that he achieved in the Swiss GP... a race without points for the World Championship. Again suspension failure at Monza. And then, there was no more money.
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After the season half of the Maki crew left the UK for Japan. Masao Ono gave his resignation and started to work for Kojima Engineering and their F1 race car plan.
Tony Trimmer was picked up by Mimura and the Maki team for the 1976 Japanese GP at Fuji. The totally new designed Maki F102A looked dangerous and was too small for Trimmer. They used a hammer to adapt the car. But it was as slow as the previous cars and Trimmer could do little. He was 27th in the classification, 16 seconds behind the pole of the American Mario Andretti (Lotus) and could not agree to be part of the race.
In that same race the Kojima team also debuted with the KE007, also with a Cosworth engine. The car conceived by Ono did stand out since it had been prepared exclusively to race in Fuji. Masahiro Hasemi finished tenth in the qualifications although an accident towards the end of the session forced the team to work for many hours to repair it. The car didn't turn out well, but Hasemi took the checkered flag in 11th place.
After the fiasco at Fuji, Mimura put an end to his desire to race in Formula 1. In 1978 he accepted Dome's offer to be its executive director and shortly after founded MIM Design, which went on to work for Mazda.
The Maki F101/001 and the F101C/002 stayed in Japan. The 102 stood for years outside a car-shop packed with promotion material until he was rescued an bought in 2005. Howden Ganley rraced the white machine at the Festival of Speed at Goodwood in 2014.
The F101C/002 was bought by Steve Farell, an engineer from Tom Walkinshaw Racing. He sold it to Jan Lammers, who made it go into restauration by Steve. It was tested again in 1994 and sold later to Joop Rouwens from the Netherlands who raced it in historic races. Then the car stayed at Stavelot museum for a long time before being bought by Belgian collector Marc Devis.
