The idea of adding more wheels to the car for faster driving is so simple that it looks silly. But very serious engineers, like the Tyrrell F1 team of the 70s, thought carefully about how it would work.
The Driven Media YouTube channel team has announced the latest in a series of its best tire tests to determine if simply adding four wheels to the Caterham Seven will speed it up. Called Eighterham, it doubles in all four corners.
To make it, the team bought the steels, welded them and installed them to increase the amount of rubber on the road. They claim that thanks to this modification, the width is 350 tires, which is well comparable to the set of tires of the appropriate size Michelin Pilot Sport, which has a width of 250 sections.
Read more: Installing a road vehicle with F1 tires is not as good an idea as you might think.
Although the wheels are definitely wider, they are also a bit heavier. Although they do not actually measure the wheels, the group shows that the added mass is significant.
So, can a significant increase in road tires withstand a significant increase in undistributed weight? And on the way, the answer is yes. With a set of standard Avon tires in the car, it completes one lap of the test track in 31.6 seconds. With the help of the new two-width wheels, they set a turnaround time of 31.1 seconds and reduced the time to half a second, which is a very impressive feat on the short run.
Even off the track, the car is a little scary. Although Caterham is not a big car, Eighterham is still trying to turn around. Due to its spaciousness, it is difficult to find even parking spaces.
Unlike the F1 tires that this crew has previously tested, dual tires can be used on the road and do not require tire pads to be useful on the road. They also cost a lot less, so which one would you get?
