Despite the fact the BT44 wasn’t the pioneer of rising rate suspension, it featured a few innovations of its own. “All the cars in the ’70s had a huge fabricated steel bridge on the back holding the suspension,” says Murray. “They were not very torsionally rigid and used to crack. That was the first car where I made a special casting for the back of the DFV and the suspension goes directly onto the engine without any frame and that was really radical.”
The BT44 was also a very small, aerodynamically efficient car and had under-body skirts that led the way to ground effects. To keep them a secret, Murray instructed the mechanics not to jack the car high in the pitlane so that other teams wouldn’t find out what was under the car.
This policy worked until that raised the car in a panic to find a leak from the fuel tank during the Austrian Grand Prix. The cat was out the bag and all the other teams employed skirts soon after. Under-body skirts weren’t the only aero trick up the BT44’s sleeve. Murray describes the car’s overall shape as an ‘upturned saucer’, which prevents as much air as possible from getting under the car. It also helps to keep the fuel load low in the car.
Plenty of innovation, then, but the innovative suspension should be credited to a home-build 750 racer.
Photography by Tom Shaxson.