Description:

We are very pleased to offer this rare and stunning 1980 Shadow DN11 chassis #01 for sale on behalf of its current owner.

The Shadow DN11 represented the final F1 design of the Grand Prix team founded by American motor racing entrepreneur Don Nichols whose cars contested the world championship from 1973 to 1981. Only three of these Cosworth DFV-propelled ground effect F1 cars were built for the 1980 Grand Prix season.  DN11-01 is easily recognizable from chassis 02 or 03 by being the only DN11 whose chassis was not anodized in black.

Despite the Shadow race team lacking the resources to compete consistently with the other teams, the DN11 was quite a good looking offering the “standard British package” : it had a Cosworth DFV V8 engine fitted as a stressed member, a central fuel cell and a Hewland six-speed gearbox. The biggest challenge facing an F1 engineer during this period was ‘sealing’ the side pods, in other words ensuring that the sliding skirts which ran front-to-rear along the lower edge of each pod remained in firm contact with the track surface. This was one of the biggest problems with the Shadow DN11 as its novice drivers had limited technical know-how to draw on in order to get the best out of the car.

The Shadow team drivers for 1980 were Geoff Lees (British), Stefan Johansson (Swedish) and David Kennedy (Irish). DN11-01 was their spare car at the South American races and it is likely that they drove it there or in testing before the start of the season. There is some debate over the precise role of Shadow DN11-01 which was one of three such chassis loaded up on the FOCA charter for the first two races of the 1980 season: the Argentine GP at Buenos Aires and the Brazilian GP at Interlagos. The chassis ‘log book’ published in Autocourse annual at the end of 1980 shows chassis number 1 to have been the spare car in Argentina and then the designated race chassis for the US GP West at Long Beach when Geoff Lees drove it in practice but failed to qualify.

After the assets of the Shadow team were sold to Teddy Yip at the end of 1981, all three DN11s remained in Don Nichols’ ownership and DN11-01 was still at his base in Salinas, California until it was bought in 1995 by Shadow enthusiast Pete Racely. Racely prepared it for vintage racing and raced it at Sears Point in 1996, at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races, the LA Grand Prix in 1997 and the Wine Country Classic in 1998 before selling it to Peter Stoneberg later that year. Stoneberg drove it at the Monterey Historics in 1999 and later sold it to Tatsuyuki Sakakibara in Tokyo, Japan where it remained until Patrick van Schoote of Symbolic Motor Car Company (La Jolla, CA) bought it from Sakakibara in 2007 and sold DN11-01 to Miles Jackson the following year. Jackson raced the car on the F1 historic racing scene in the USA until he sold to the current German owner in 2015.

After importation into Germany a complete overhaul was undertaken by Britec Motorsport. This included a thorough inspection of the tub with repairs where/as needed, suspension rebuild, installation of a new fuel cell, rebuild of engine and gearbox, etc.. When completed at the end of 2016, DN11-01 was only used at a track day in April 2017 where the car went very well. Another more pressing project then necessitated the removal of the engine and wiring loom which is still the case today and – to be clear - the car is sold without engine and wiring loom which are the only items needed to bring DN11-01 back to life again (in 2018, crack-testing, belts and fire system were renewed). The car comes with all required certificates, a new 2019 FIA HTP and good spares.

This stunning F1 ground effects Shadow DN11 represents a rare opportunity to own one of the last examples built and run by the legendary Shadow racing team. Fitted with a correct, short-stroke Cosworth DFV engine and loom, chassis DN11-01 is ready to be driven in the Masters Historic F1 Championship while also being eligible for the pinnacle historic F1 event, the Monaco Historic GP in May 2020.

SPECIFICATION: SHADOW DN11

Wheelbase: 109 in (2769 mm)

Track: 64 in front /67 in rear (1626 mm/1702 mm)

Chassis weight: 100 lb (45 kg)

Weight: 1350 lb (613 kg)

Wheels: 13 in front and rear (330 mm)

Engine: Ford Cosworth DFV

Gearbox: Hewland DG300