Van Diemen Sports 2000 History
In the UK, Sports 2000 was a recognized arena for car and driver
development during the late seventies and eighties. It was a high profile
and competitive series attracting many sports car manufacturers including
Lola, Tiga, Shrike, March, Royal and Reynard.
Many of the design features that we recognize in Sports car racing around
the globe today, were pioneered and developed in early Sports 2000 cars.
The single engine series created close racing between different drivers
and manufactures, and proved to be an environment for natural car
development as technology, expertise and experience took the manufactures
through many evolutionary stages.
Van Diemen entered the sports 2000 market in 1994 with an Andy Forby
designed car. The originally design brief for the Van Diemen dictated that
the car should be immensely strong and safe with great torsional
stiffness, while taking advantage of aerodynamic advances and latest
technology. The plan was to enter the US market with the revolutionary
auto gearbox; the resulting cars were originally shipped to the USA, as
the home series had by now been dropped from front line racing. The car
was subsequently banned in the US because of its auto gearbox, and so
failed to sell in any numbers. A couple of converted cars were run but
failed to make progress, for one reason or another the car failed to show
its full potential at that time.
It was not until the resurgence of the sports 2000 series in the UK, which
in the 2001 season, saw more cars that at any previous time in the history
of the series, that the Van Diemen was given the chance to perform
properly.
Nik Johnson took his Van Diemen to the inaugural championship title in
2001 winning outright five of the eight race series.
The car had over the previous 18 months gone through a development process
in conjunction with the manufacturer, and under the personal guidance of
the founder of Van Diemen, Ralf Firman. The early problems were identified
and the result was to alter the original front and rear suspension
systems. The car was widened at the rear and the front rocker system
replaced with a conventional spring and wishbone configuration. This gave
the car a more traditional feel, and greater rear stability and proved to
be a significant development forward.
The future for Van Diemen within Sports 2000 looks assured with the
introduction of the latest Ford Engine, the 'Duractec', the first truly
worldwide engine designed to power Ford through the next quarter Century.
The conversion time from Pinto spec to Duratec being only a few hours
turnaround.
With 4 new cars in the manufacturing process at this time and renewed
interest from the USA, Ancaster Leisure and Van Diemen will be running
cars both in the UK and USA in 2002. They will undoubtedly be at the
forefront of Sports 2000 now and in the future.
PRODUCTION CHASSIS NUMBER: RF is for Ralf Firman, as all Van Diemens
during his era displayed those initials first, S is for Sports Car - the
only one the company has made, and XX is the last two numbers of the year
of manufacture. The 22 is the model designation for the S2, and the last
two numbers are the number in production.
Van Diemen Company History
March 12th 1973 the first Van Diemen racing car rolled out of the factory
gates in Norfolk and thirty years later the marque continues to go from
strength to strength, producing cars that are exported across the world
and being the world’s largest volume producer of racing cars.
Van Diemen was founded by race mechanic Ralph Firman and his partner,
Tasmanian racing driver Ross Ambrose, who decided that they could beat the
other manufacturers at their own game – and thus Van Diemen was born and
three decades on has the remarkable record of 24 National Championships
and 11 Formula Ford Festival wins amongst hundreds of race wins.
Van Diemen is not only famous for its cars, but also some of the works’
team drivers have gone on to be known across the globe and Ayrton Senna is
perhaps the most celebrated but also Eddie Irvine, Jason Plato, Julian
Westwood. Countless hundreds of other drivers throughout the world have
benefited from Van Diemens’s expertise including, Roberto Moreno, Mauricio
Gugelmin, Jonathan Palmer and David Coulthard.
Incidentally, for those that have always wondered the name comes from the
old Dutch name for the island of Tasmania, off Australia’s south coast;
Van Diemen’s Land!
In 2002 Van Diemen International completed its sale to Elan Motorsport
Technologies who continue to provide the same engineering excellence and
commitment to constant development that has made Van Diemen the leader in
its field for over quarter of a century.
