The story about Bobby Unser and Dan Gurney that I know is relative only to the Gurney flap, not to wing itself, and it was an episode that happened in the 1971 at Phoenix, I don’t know if it’s the same story you are referring to or maybe is a different one.
Actually outside F1 I really don’t know who first put a wing on a car, it’s just one of these things that when you see the first time you usually think “It looks so obvious, why didn’t they thought about that earlier ?” .
Surely the idea to generate downforce wasn’t new, I’ve seen sketches, dating back to 1937, of the AutoUnion cars with arrows pointing downwards clearly suggesting the concept of using the body to generate a vertical aero force, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that someone thought about it even earlier.
About wings in F1, I’ve a Schlegelmilch’s book with pictures of F1 since 1950 and according to the summary of the 1968 season, the first rear wing appeared on the Ickx Ferrari 312/F1 at the Spa race that year.
There’s also a pic showing a row of the grid at 1968 Rouen race with J Rindt, probably on a Lotus (please correct me if it wasn’t a Lotus cause I’m not sure and there’s no caption), J Stewart’s Matra and J Ickx Ferrari.
The Ferrari has a single element wing, with small endplates, apparently tilted towards left, quite high above the engine, between driver and rear wheels. The car has also two small dive planes at the sides of the nose.
On the Rindt’s car, there’s a very simple rear wing, single plane without endplates, above the rear wheel axle and just a bit higher than the wheels. There are also the dive plates at the sides of the nose.
Stewart’s car has no wings or dive plates.
Location: Covilhã, Portugal (and sometimes in Évora)
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Well...I found something even older then what dumrick wrote:
- Im 1928 Fritz Von Opel used 2 inverted wings in the Opel RAK2, which was powered by rocket engines, built by Eugen Sander. Each wing was 1,25 m wide. And the car reached 192 Km/h.
This was taken from a Motor Sport History book. (and was adapted...and translated)
Further down the text it mentions Michael May (like Dumrick said), but it mentions that Mercedes used a wing on the Mercedes 300SLR before May used it!
Location: Covilhã, Portugal (and sometimes in Évora)
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I'm still looking for it but I have a documentary with images from before 1920....with a road car racing with a wing!!!! In a Mille Miglia (if I'0m not mistaken) if I find it I'll post back with the info I can get from the documentary.
Am I right in saying that Mercedes stumbled upon downforce when they adopted a rear mounted braking flap for the 300SLR Le Mans car of 1955. Drivers reported that the airbrake seemed to stabilize the car under braking and the fact that this was due to the downforce generated by the flap was not realized at the time.
