As there are over 650 Unraced F1 projects from the period 1885 – 2020 I decided before to publish articles of Unraced projects per year. This is easier for you to see which attempts happened a specific year. Of course, it is easier for me as well as researching and writing an article takes a lot of time, which I don’t always have. If you are interested in one of the summarized attempts perhaps, I can give you more info about it.This is the summarized overview of the Unraced projects in 1984.
Minardi-Alfa Romeo M184
In 1985 the Minardi F1 team made it’s debut in the Formula One with their M185. The car as first powered by the Ford DFY 3.0 V8, and a few races later by the thirsty Motori Moderni. However, many forgot that the small Italian team from GianCarlo Minardi had in 1984 already a F1 car ready. The Minardi M184 was designed intended as a dual purpose. Caliri, who was the designer, planned to use the design for the Formula One and Formula 3000. The car was designed around Alfa Romeo’s V8 turbo engine.
The M184 was only used eventually to test with the Alfa Romeo V8 turbo engine. However, that same year Carlo Chiti left Alfa Romeo to start up his own company names Motori Moderni. Chiti’s first engine was the Motori Moderni V6 Turbocharged engine. Branded Tipo 615-90. The engine was cheaper, though it was thirsty and was far from reliable. Especially compared with alfa’s engine, which wasn’t that good either. When Chiti left Alfa Romeo, Minardi stopped testing with the Alfa Romeo engine. Instead the team had an agreement with Motori Moderni to deliver them with the V6 engines in 1985.
Eventually Minardi would race three season with the engine, scoring zero points. When the team went to the 3,5L V8 engine from Ford the team scored their first points in Detroit with Pierluigi Martini behind the wheel. It has been said that Motori Moderni especially designed the engine for the Minardi team.
