In the mid-seventies, Formula 1 was basically a one-engine show. If you weren't Ferrari, you were almost certainly running a Ford-Cosworth DFV V8. Since everyone had the same power, the only way to win was to get weird with physics. That’s exactly what Derek Gardner did. He showed up to the 1975 season with a blueprint that looked like a fever dream: an F1 car with six wheels. People thought it was a publicity stunt. It wasn't.
The Tyrrell P34 is arguably the most recognizable car in the history of the sport. It’s also one of the most misunderstood. It wasn't just a "more rubber equals more grip" situation. Honestly, the logic was much nerdier than that. Gardner wanted to reduce the aerodynamic lift caused by the massive front tires of the era. He realized that if he used tiny 10-inch wheels, he could hide them behind the front wing. This cleaned up the airflow significantly. But two tiny tires didn't have enough contact patch to turn a car at 170 mph.
So, he added two more.
The Weird Engineering of the F1 Car With Six Wheels
Most fans think the extra wheels were about traction. They weren't. The DFV engine sent power to the rear, so the four front wheels were strictly for steering and braking. Because there were four of them, Gardner could use smaller brake discs but get more total surface area. It stopped like nothing else on the grid.
The complexity, though? It was a nightmare.
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Think about the linkage required to make four wheels steer in perfect synchronization. The front-most pair had to turn at a different angle than the second pair to avoid scrubbing. Tyrrell had to design a bespoke "bell crank" system just to keep the geometry from falling apart. If one wheel hit a bump, the feedback through the steering wheel was unlike anything Jody Scheckter or Patrick Depailler had ever felt.
Then there was the visibility issue.
Scheckter hated the fact that he couldn't see his tires. In a normal open-wheeler, a driver watches the front wheels to hit the apex of a corner. In the P34, the wheels were so small and tucked away that Tyrrell had to cut little "portholes" into the cockpit sides. This allowed the drivers to peek down and actually see if they were about to clip a curb. It looked ridiculous, but it worked.
1976: The Year the Experiment Actually Worked
The 1976 Swedish Grand Prix is the peak of this story. Jody Scheckter took pole position and won the race. His teammate, Depailler, came in second. It remains the only time an F1 car with six wheels has ever won a Grand Prix. At that moment, the rest of the paddock was terrified. Teams like March, Ferrari, and Williams started looking into their own six-wheeled prototypes. Ferrari even built a car, the 312T6, which had four wheels on the rear axle, side-by-side like a dually pickup truck.
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It was a total arms race.
But while Tyrrell proved the concept was fast, the logistics were crumbling. Goodyear was the sole tire supplier. They were busy developing standard tires for the rest of the grid. They didn't really want to spend millions of dollars R&D-ing tiny 10-inch tires for just one team. By 1977, the front tires on the P34 weren't getting any better, while the standard rear tires were evolving rapidly. The car became unbalanced. It pushed, it understeered, and it eventually became a rolling liability.
Why We Don't See Six Wheels Anymore
It wasn't just that the tires sucked. The weight was a massive penalty. Four wheels mean four sets of bearings, four sets of brakes, and a much heavier front suspension assembly. By the time the 1977 season wrapped up, Tyrrell went back to four wheels.
The final nail in the coffin came from the regulators.
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The FIA eventually realized that if they didn't step in, the grid would become a chaotic mess of multi-wheeled monstrosities. Williams was testing a car with four wheels at the back (the FW08B) that was terrifyingly fast because of its incredible traction out of corners. Before it could race, the FIA passed a rule: four wheels only. Two must steer.
That was it. The dream was dead.
Common Myths About the Six-Wheeled Tyrrell
- Myth 1: It was built for more grip. As mentioned, it was actually an aero play. The extra grip was a secondary benefit that helped compensate for the smaller tire size.
- Myth 2: It was slow. In its debut year, it was incredibly competitive. It finished 3rd in the Constructors' Championship in 1976.
- Myth 3: It was unstable. Actually, the four front wheels provided a very stable braking platform. The "instability" only came later when tire development stalled and the front-to-rear grip ratio went out of whack.
What collectors and engineers can learn from the P34
If you're looking into the history of F1 car six wheels designs, don't just look at the photos. Look at the telemetry of the era. The P34 proved that radical thinking can disrupt a stagnant field, but it also highlighted the danger of "bespoke" dependencies. Tyrrell’s success was entirely in the hands of Goodyear. When your supplier stops caring about your specific niche, your innovation dies.
For anyone building or designing in high-performance environments today—whether it's sim racing or actual engineering—the lesson is about "systemic balance." You can have the best front end in the world, but if it doesn't scale with the rest of the industry's progress, you're just driving a very expensive museum piece.
To truly understand the P34, you have to look at the 1977 car, the P34B. It was wider, heavier, and ultimately slower because they tried to fix the tire issues by moving the wheels further out into the airflow. In doing so, they destroyed the very aerodynamic advantage the car was built for in the first place. It’s a classic case of "fixing" a problem until the original solution disappears.
Taking Action: How to Explore the Six-Wheel Legacy
If you want to see these machines in person or study the mechanics deeper, here is what you should actually do:
- Visit the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum: They have a P34 in Birmingham, Alabama. Seeing the scale of the front wheels in person is the only way to realize how tiny they actually are.
- Study the Williams FW08B: Look up the footage of the Williams six-wheeler testing at Donington Park. It’s a completely different philosophy (four wheels at the back for traction) and shows the path F1 might have taken if the rules hadn't changed.
- Sim Racing: Use a simulator like Assetto Corsa with a high-quality P34 mod. It’s the closest you’ll get to feeling the bizarre weight transfer and braking characteristics of the four-wheel front end.
- Technical Drawings: Search for Gardner’s original suspension blueprints. The way the steering rack connects to the secondary axle is a masterclass in 1970s mechanical engineering that doesn't rely on modern sensors or actuators.