CLASSIC FOOTAGE: 1992 WILLIAMS F1 TRANSPORTER

Stumbling across some retro F1 transporter vision from almost three decades ago

The Williams F1 team was at the peak of its powers at the end of 1992. Nigel Mansell had comfortably claimed the driver’s championship, and the team topped the constructor’s standings by 65 points.

That prompted Grenada Television to capture the Grove outfit’s preparations for its title defence in 1993 as part of its ‘Extraordinary People’ series.

While firmly focused on preparations for 1993, the documentary actually begins on November 14, 1992. And that’s where we get the first piece of transporter footage only six days after the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide.

The documentary opens on a dreary day in Oxfordshire, with the Williams F1 transporter cruising through the English countryside as it returns the race gear to the team’s factory.

Accompanied by some dramatic music, we get a great view of the spray coming off the transporter as it motors underneath a bridge, followed by a lengthy look at the Renault R365 prime mover that hauled the race gear around Europe that year.

The introduction also features some footage of the FW14B Formula 1 cars being unloaded from the transporter and rolled back into the factory, leaving the transporter with just over two weeks off until we see it being loaded up again with the first iterations of the FW15 before it boards the ferry to Estoril Circuit in Portugal.

We also get a brief look inside the ‘inner sanctum office’ of the transporter nearing the end of the documentary as Damon Hill and Patrick Head sit down to finalize their arrangements for the 1993 season.

You can watch the full documentary below.