The Almighty Wing - A Forgotten Innovator?
Hello, everyone! Welcome to my COTW review, where I finally have energy and motive to talk about something. This week's entry is a testament to human ingenuity and rule-bending in an era before downforce.
I present to you, the origin of the almighty wing: The 1966 Chaparral 2E.
A Chaparral 2E next to a Chaparral 2C.
So what's the deal with this thing? And why is it so important?
A little of its history will help to make sense of things. And when we talk about any Chaparral, we talk about
all of them up to that point because the company's entire existence was sheer genius and impressive.
Chaparral Cars didn't start until 1963, but the seeds of greatness were planted in 1957. At the time, a company called Troutman and Barnes was producing a small race car called the Chaparral - Jim Hall and Hap Sharp purchased two copies of the Chaparral and started racing.
1961-1963 Chaparral 1 (Group P)
Jim and Hap decided to start making their own cars in the opening of the 1960s, and asked Troutman and Barnes for the permissions/right to the Chaparral name - and thus Chaparral Cars was born in 1963. The original Troutman and Barnes Chaparrals were retroactively named the Chaparral 1 (which is why all of the rest of the Chaparrals had the 2 + letter designation - the more you know).
The first of the second generation Chaparrals was, obviously, the 2A, followed by the B and C (derivatives of the 2A that improved on it), and then the 2D (closed cockpit version of the 2C - GT fans know this one), 2E, 2F (closed cockpit version of the 2E), 2G (a bonkers-looking continuation of the 2E), 2H (the "white whale"), a mysterious 2I that never saw the light of day, and the notorious 2J vacuum cleaner race car. They retired from racing after the 2J was banned, at least for a few years. Chaparral's final push for fame was an Indy car called the 2K that won the Indy 500 and the CART championship in 1980.
So, a varied history with a unique assortment of race cars. But why is the 2E in particular so important?
I can sum this up in one sentence: The 2E was the first racing car to implement aerodynamic theories.
Built on an aluminum 2C chassis, the 2E was a startling car to look at compared to its peers. It was a culmination of Jim Hall's aerodynamic theories, and its mere introduction forever rocked the racing world's foundations. It featured an early form of the racing wing that was attached to a pedal - it didn't need a clutch due to its unique (semi-)automatic transmission so the space was taken up by the wing's party trick.
At any point in the race, the driver of the 2E could engage the pedal and the fun began. The wing flattened out by raising the leading edge of the wing, and small ducts in the nose of the car closed up to improve the car's straight line aerodynamics. It would remain engaged until the brakes were pressed, at which moment the wing and ducts reverted back to their normal positions.
The almighty wing was also firmly attached to the car's suspension, giving it an edge in traction over its peers. Suffice it to say, this didn't last long as an innovation as the competitors tried to copy the idea (with questionable execution) and it was banned by the governing body.
Formula 1 would adopt racing wings and other aspects of Jim Hall's theories and the rest is history - just look at any racing series and you'll see a wing on the car. I think it's safe to say that Jim Hall was onto something at the time, and we take his innovation for granted.
And some 47 years later, the 2E finally has a chance to shine in the spotlight once again. It was introduced as a DLC in Forza Motorsport 5 and has been a staple of the classic race car list ever since.
So how is it in the game?
Unfortunately, the full effect of the car's aerodynamic behavior was never modeled in the game. The wing moves up and down at about 100 MPH and that's about it for the simulation of the car's defining feature.
That gripe aside, the 2E is one hell of a car to drive. It only has three gears, with Gear 1 redlining at nearly 120 MPH. You'd think a first gear that long would bog the car down, but...Nope. It takes off and just keeps hauling from 0-120, and it does it without breaking a sweat. Second gear redlines at about 135 and third redlines at the car's mechanically-limited top speed of 174 MPH. I suspect this car could push 186 MPH (300 km/h) with no sweat, or even reach for 200. For a small car with a maximum of 475 HP off its small Chevy V8, this is awfully impressive.
The tires do show their age, and will break loose if you don't treat the car with the respect it demands in the corner. This is a small tradeoff for this car's massive acceleration, though. At the hairpin at the end of the Mulsanne, the 2E went from 47 MPH at the apex to just short of 90 MPH at the end of the curbstones on the left - and that's a ridiculously tiny gap for 42 MPH to be found in. It does it anyways due to the car's extreme diet - it weighs less than 2000 pounds. The real world car tipped the scaled at a meager 1,560 pounds.
Driving it was fantastic - the car had great handling for a 52 year old race car, and it certainly kept me on my toes. I had to spend four laps dialing in my inputs because of how brutal this car is to drive at first - but once I got the hang of it, it was a corner-carving monster that ate corner exits like nothing else in the Prototype tier.
It is one of the cars that truly deserves a
Sleeper rating, as it is decidedly not a car to scoff at in any lobbies.
So, the Chaparral 2E.
Historic innovation.
Almighty wing.
Forgotten no more.
Thanks for reading.
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