Chris Amon had a desire to be his own boss so in 1973 with his own money and that of enthusiast John Dalton he commissioned young designer Gordon Fowell to design a car for the start of the 1974 season. So was born the Amon AF1 car powered by a cosworth DSV engine and the first F1 car to use a central fuel cell between the cockpit and the engine. Suspension was a simple torsion bar setup and brakes were inboard front and rear. Aerodynamics were developed by Professor Tom Boyce to cover th slimline aluminium monocoque and feature a Scolloped nose profile with full width front wing and a rear wing supported by vast swept back wing plates. Only one complete car and spare tub were builtand early testing revelled bad vibrations under braking.
The Amon AF1's only race appearence would be at Spain where it ran a conventional nose cone but broke a brake shaft and failed to finish the race. Chris also quailified the car at Monaco but chose not to start in the race when an inspection of the car showed signs of incipient hub failure. Another attempt was made to quailify at Nurburgring with both Chris and Larry Perkins trying to qualify the same car but when Larry crashed ripping off a wheel the result was another fail to qualify for the team. One final failed attempt at Monza singled the end for the car and the luckless project was finally abandoned.
