The Williams FW14B car with which Nigel Mansell took his one and only Formula 1 crown in 1992 is going to be auctioned by Bonhams at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.
The Williams FW14B was an Adrian Newey designed car that dominated the 1992 Formula 1 season, winning ten of the 16 rounds, nine in the hands of Mansell and one with Riccardo Patrese, sealing both the drivers’ title for Mansell and the constructors championship for Williams.
Mansell drove the car that’s to be auctioned – chassis 08 – in the early part of the 1992 Formula 1 season, taking five wins and a second place at the Monaco Grand Prix.
The car was then passed to Patrese for six of the latter rounds of the season, and with it, he too was able to score a Grand Prix win.
The 1992 FW14B featured a 3.5-litre V10-cylinder Renault RS3 engine, 6-speed semi-automatic transmission and active suspension.
The FW14B was so good and so sophisticated that not only did it obliterate the competition, it removed the possibility of any competition, and within two years the technology that gave Williams its advantage was banned, and so the FW14B remains one of the most technically advanced Grand Prix cars of all time.
Global Director of Motorsport at Bonhams Mark Osborne said of the FW14B:
“As a young man, and along with a nation, I was in patriotic awe of the brilliance of the British Williams cars, and of Red 5 in particular. Chassis 8 was the focus of that adulation – the best of the breed – and in Mansell’s hands it took the first 5 rounds of the Championship.”
“The FW14B was then and remains today one of the most sophisticated cars to compete in F1, and we at Bonhams are honoured to have been entrusted with such a motor racing legend.”
The FW14B chassis 8 has been painstakingly well-preserved by Williams Grand Prix and then by a single other owner, and it’s in perfect running order, having been fired up recently.
The Williams FW14B is expected to fetch around £3 million, which is a shame because I was on the lookout for a new car, but three million quid is a bit out of my price range.
*Image courtesy of Bonhams
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