New, Improved Racing Car Designed and Made by Engineering Students

Engineering students from the University of Birmingham will launch their new racing car on Friday 2nd April.  The car will be officially unveiled by Guy Smith, winner of the 2003 Le Mans 24 hour race.

This is the fourth racing car to be designed and made from scratch by theUniversity's Mechanical and Electrical Engineering students and this year'scar promises to be better than ever before with new parts and features thatwill make it faster to race.

The students are asked to assume that a manufacturer has commissioned themto produce a prototype car, that will be evaluated and put into fullproduction.  The car must have high performance in terms of acceleration,braking and handling.  Other factors that must be considered are aesthetics,comfort and use of common parts.

This year's car has a new engine and a Formula 1 style carbon fibre chassis,so it is lighter and faster.  The suspension has been developed withindustry standard software and Electrical Engineering students have provideda new version of their award-winning pneumatic gearshift system as well as anew liquid crystal display dash.

Professor David Hukins from the School of Engineering, says, 'Theparticipating students are exposed to marketing, time management, budgeting,presentation skills and other management issues and this makes them veryappealing to industry.  This project is challenging and inspiring and is aunique academic experience.'

Graduates who have taken part in this project have gone on to work for FordCosworth, Jordan F1, Williams F1, McLaren F1, Rolls Royce, Jaguar, andLandrover.  The car will be submitted to the Formula Student competitionlater this year when the car will be raced in Detroit against 139 other UKand US universities teams.