I'm an admirer of great designers, from Colin Chapman to Barnes Wallis, to Alec Issigonis, to Fabio Taglioni, to Jim Hall.
Jim Hall truly was a great and inventive designer, he was light years ahead of his contemporaries in many areas, especially aerodynamics. His cars, the Chaparralls, were famous for the 1970 2J suction car. Eight years later was it tried in the Brabham BT46B in Formula One, that's how far ahead he was.
But even before that, in 1966, while Formula One cars still had their radiators in the nose and aerodynamics were not truly practiced, Jim Hall came out with the Chaparrall 2E. Jim moved the radiator from the nose to sidepods on either side, a move that became the standard for all race cars to this day.
Along with this "first" was the wing, another "first". It was mounted directly to the rear suspension uprights, and combined with the clutchless transmission, gave the driver the option of changing incidence. Untouched it had incidence, generating downforce and drag. But a pedal where the clutch traditionally resided allowed the driver to flatten it out to drop drag and downforce. This system was linked to the front nose ducting (downforce generating) to close off a flap, which spilled downforce and drag, but more importantly, balancing the car. Truly genius.
Can Am was exciting with the bad boy cars of humungous power, but this fertile breeding ground allowed guys like Jim Hall to pave the way in racing aerodynamics.
Racing should be decided on the track, not the court room.
