Automobiles Gonfaronaise Sportive

Automobiles Gonfaronaises Sportives was founded by Henri Julien, a driver and car- builder during the 60s. The company started out small and pretty much stayed that way.

Towards the end of the 1960s Julien ran F3 Matras for a number of French drivers which eventually led to the building of the first AGS, the JH1, built in 1970 for Formula France. A number of cars for the French categories were produced with limited success so when the organisation moved up to Formula 2 in 1978 many people were taken by surprise.

It took two seasons before an AGS driver scored a point in the European F2 series although when Dallest did get on the leaderboard it was with maximum points after an excellent race at Pau.

The following three years saw AGS performing quite well in F2 competiitions up until 1984 when Formula 2 was wound down.

The move to the big league came in 1986 when the first AGS arrived for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The first championship point arrived in Australia the following season but the small operation struggled to compete.

In 1988 most of the staff defected to Coloni and in 1990 AGS was restructured under the direction of Hughes de Chaunac and relocated from the original Gonfaron base to the Var circuit near Le Luc en Provence. June 1990 saw another change - Chaunac left the team and ownership passed to Cyril de Rouvre who in turn, sold the majority shareholdings to the Italians Gabriele Rafanelli and Patrizio Cantu in April 1991, only to see the team close before the end of that year.

Cars

All Formula One cars of Automobiles Gonfaronaise Sportive

Car designation	Race years
AGS JH21C	1986
AGS JH22	1987
AGS JH23	1988
AGS JH23B	1989
AGS JH25	1990
AGS JH25B	1991