Andrew Burton is a highly successful rally driver, having built his own vehicles in the past, as well as specialist agricultural equipment. This car is a one-off project designed and built by Andrew Burton to compete in the BTRDA championship. It features a longitudinal mid-mounted, naturally-aspirated Cosworth V6, coupled to a sequential transmission. The structure is built from a combination of high-tensile steel sheet and tube, covered by kevlar and carbon bodywork.
Brief
To configure the front and rear suspension systems to produce a highly responsive vehicle that is smooth and predictable when sliding at large body slip angles under all combinations of traction and braking.
The project
In order to achieve this, the rear suspension system is an unusual dead-beam system controlled by four links to the rear bulkhead. The final drive remains fixed to the powertrain. This eliminates jacking forces under cornering, and allows the rear structure to be very simple and light. It also incorporates a certain amount of roll oversteer to assist in setting the car up for corners. We also configured the McPherson strut front suspension system.
Achievements
The project succeeded in winning the BTRDA championship in 2000 and 2003, against a variety of ex-WRC championship cars.