Team story
Origins
John Nicholson knew the Cosworth DFV from the engine bench too: his Nicholson-McLaren business prepared racing engines. After racing Martin Slater’s Formula Atlantic cars, he commissioned a Formula 1 car from him. The Lyncar 006 emerged in 1974, with a monocoque fabricated by Maurice Gomm and assembled by Slater, broadening the smaller cars’ layout to accommodate more fuel.
The Formula 1 journey
Nicholson took it to the Race of Champions and International Trophy, both non-championship races, before unsuccessfully attempting to qualify for the 1974 British Grand Prix. In 1975 he secured a place on the grid at Silverstone. The results list places him seventeenth in the rain-affected race: this was Lyncar’s only World Championship start, not the car’s only competitive outing.
Historical timeline
Three chapters in the story of Lyncar
Three episodes to revisit the people, cars and races that shaped this journey.
First appearance · British Grand Prix
John Nicholson · British Grand Prix 1975. The recorded position is P17; this number alone does not show whether the driver completed the race distance. This is the first recorded race start, or the first entry if the team never started a race.
Sporting landmark · British Grand Prix
John Nicholson · British Grand Prix 1975. The recorded position is P17; this number alone does not show whether the driver completed the race distance. This marks the first win or podium where one exists, otherwise the highest recorded placing for this constructor.
Latest recorded appearance · British Grand Prix
John Nicholson · British Grand Prix 1975. The recorded position is P17; this number alone does not show whether the driver completed the race distance. This is the last race start attributed to this constructor in the archive, not necessarily the end of the organisation behind it.
A distinctive way of racing
Slater chose conventional suspension, a DFV prepared by Nicholson and a Hewland FG400 gearbox. The project was not seeking a technical revolution: it brought together expertise already available around its driver-customer.
What remains
Sold first to Bobby Howlings and then to Emilio de Villota, the car found another career in Shellsport G8. De Villota won at Mallory Park in 1977 after the car had been overhauled. This second life makes Lyncar more than an isolated appearance at Silverstone: the same design passed from Nicholson’s World Championship attempt to a British competition in which it could still win.