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While the Mercedes team has dominated the Formula One in recent years, it's hard to imagine that the German teams were anything but dominant at times.

Rolf-Johann Stommelen is in the beginning 70. Flight became the first German Formula One racer after the death of Wolfgang von Trips 1957. Stommelen has joined the Brabham team and is already in Zeltweg in his premiere season of the year 1970 stepped onto the winning stage. But for years 1971, Sir Jack Brabham announced his retirement and returned to his home country of Australia .

Because of this, Stommelen and his German sponsor, trailer maker Eifelland from Mayen near Nuerburgring and the car magazine AMuS, decided to transfer okay to another F1 constructor. So Stommelen entered the Plot end Walker Crew Surtees sponsored by Tea Brand Brooke Bond Oxo. Stommelen achieved 1971 only only 3 points, which caused a lot of frustration for both John Surtees and his German driver. Stommelen's main supporters faced a lot of negative criticism in the German media and consequently no longer wanted to spend money on the British team.

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They wanted to have complete control over the money and equipment they invested in F1, so they decided to set up a German team with a German car and racer. The only mistake was that there was no racing car industry in Germany at the time. Both in the pre-war and post-war era, German cars (Auto Union, Mercedes-Benz) enjoyed an excellent reputation, but after the departure of Porsche in the year

, the one-seat racing scene no longer had real backers with one exception. Eifelland owner Guenther Hennerici was a true racer in terms of greats such as Plot end Walker, Ken Tyrrell or Sir Frank Williams.

Hennerici was fascinated by the idea of ​​constructing the first German F1 car since the legendary Porsche 804 which is the year 1962 won the French Grand Prix with American star Dan Gurney at the wheel. Following the bankruptcy of Francisco McNamara, Hennericio came to mind with Jo Karasek, who, in his opinion, was the right engineer to produce a successful F1 car. September 1971 Negotiations began between Hennerius, Karasek, and Ford's German department to establish F1 teams for the season 1972. At first, things did not seem promising as Hennerica was unable to provide the project with sufficient capital. The only companies remaining on board were Eifelland and Ford Cologne Ltd.

The car is basically assembled around the standard March chassis 721, transformed by Swiss industrial design guru Luigi Colani, who began his career as a Fiat bodybuilder and then produced the Colani Alfa sports car of the year 1957 and BMW 700 from 1959. He then went on to design aircraft and furniture before devoting himself to the production of artifacts such as the Colani Highscreen PC, another of his unsuccessful attempts to introduce soft lines and spacious curves into a design area dominated by efficiency and functionality, not appearance.

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The Eifelland F1 was a similar failure. With no prior experience with single-seaters, Colani tried to realize his childhood dreams and design a futuristic racing machine with its distinctive design elements, culminating in the revolutionary air intake that was part of the racing cockpit. Although the car's lines indicated high air efficiency, the reality was, of course, significantly different.

During the season, parts of Colani's construction were dismantled to at least partially repair the missing design. Even before the first race of the season, the original nose of the March chassis returned to the car 721, however, many technical difficulties continued. After only 8 races, Eifelland F1 went into F1 history due to poor results, internal disputes and financial problems, without a single point won.


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