1977 Wolf-Ford-Cosworth WR3
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Monaco | May 2024
Walter Wolf made money in the Canadian oil business and later came to know Frank Williams, whose first F1 team was struggling. Wolf bought in. Then he bought Hesketh. Then he bought bits of Graham Hill’s former team. At the end of 1976, Wolf forced out Williams, who went on to found Williams Grand Prix Engineering, which is still on the grid.
Walter Wolf Racing first appeared in F1 in 1977. They ran a single car all season for Jody Scheckter, who currently owns this, a derivative chassis of their first entry: the WR1. They would upgrade the car throughout the year as the WR2, WR3, and WR4. This car is chassis WR1/3 (aka WR3, which debuted in March 1977), and it’s competition history includes:
- 1977 Belgian Grand Prix – 16th, DNF (with Jody Scheckter)
- 1977 French Grand Prix – 15th, DNF (with Scheckter)
- 1977 Austrian Grand Prix – 18th, DNF (with Scheckter)
- 1977 Japanese Grand Prix – 10th (with Scheckter)
- 1977 United States Grand Prix West – 13th, DNF (with Scheckter)
- 1978 German Grand Prix – 10th (with Keke Rosberg)
- 1978 Austrian Grand Prix – 11th, DNF (with Rosberg)
The car features a 3.0-liter Ford-Cosworth DFV V8 and a Hewland gearbox. After Wolf got their WR4 and WR5 cars ready in 1978, they sold WR3 and WR3 to Theodore Racing, who used them with Keke Rosberg. The car ran in F5000 in Australia in 1979 and then in the 1980 Aurora AFX British F1 Championship with the likes of Kevin Cogan and Desire Wilson.
This car was rebuilt under Scheckter’s ownership and now has an estimate of $480,000-$695,000. More info can be found here.