In 1968 Matra developed their famous V-12 engine - which
brought the company so much succes in their motorsport career.
The first car to get the V12 engine installed
was the M630 endurance sports prototype - which had its debut in Le-Mans in 1968, where it
started with mechanical problems, which sent it down to a 14'th place in the race, but it
climbed up to second place before the race ended. However during one of the last pitstops
the car caught fire, and allthough the fire was soon put out, the car could not continue.
The picture on the right, shows the M630 with the first version of the V12 engine, where the
inlet trumpets were parallel to the "V" in the engineblock, which looks spectacular, although
it makes the exhaust-path a bit ackward, which is why the later versions had the trumpets
assembled in two near-vertical rows, in the middle between the cylinder banks, giving the
same angle for inlet and exhaust in each cylinder. That arrangement also allowed for the
invention of the "airbox", which Matra pioneered with the later versions of the
M650 (on M670 and onwards it became standard).
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Lennart.Sorth@matrasport.dk |