Formula 1 World Champion Jody Scheckter gives me a tour of his F1 car collection! | RM Sotheby's

then in his office it was pretty dark with things like white furniture and um I sat there, I don't have a bodyguard or anything and he said, how much money do you want? That was the first question. I said I'm too young to talk about money. Okay, and I didn't understand. I didn't get the trip, we didn't do a uh, what's it called there? They didn't offer me to drive there, I think um and then, uh, when, early next year they came really early and said we want you to drive. and I said no, I wait until the end of the year and no, we want you now, so I said this is what I want and we signed a contract from the beginning everyone said I would never get along in Italy, but I loved it, it was fun, Jill, You know?

We were very good friends, we laughed a lot and played a lot, and U and the food were much better too. The 1979 Ferrari 312 T4 was Enzo Ferrar's last Grand Prix

champion

ship-winning car. This car just screams Ferrari. The point where man and machine connect in perfect harmony. It is totally original. This car has only been driven by Jodie since taking the

champion

ship at Monza in 1979. One of Mara Forger's best designs, Ferrari's first full ground effect pre-car and powered by an impressive 3-litre Flat 12 engine which led to the victories at the Belgian Grand Prix in Monaco and Italy.

It is an absolutely stunning machine. This is the one you have. It's been on all of our walls forever, it's just a fantastic, beautiful car, yeah, and it never broke down, which it did. I don't think any other car, actually, these were pretty good, but most other cars had problems in one way or another. Well, zel helped make things bulletproof, didn't he? Because he wasn't totally understanding, that's what we read about his style. Helped engineer reliability. Jel liked the image of being the dead demon, what's his name, and that was his weakness and that's what gave him a little more strength, yes, to do things that you know in Monaco, when you go into the straight, you jump and he just kept his foot on the ground yeah, but I changed gears there and he broke a Shar so you could.

Always learn from your teammates, right, and you'd see someone breaking their driveshafts and you can adjust your style. No, I would just do what I think is right. You know, you treat the car very once. enter the race you treat the car gently you don't want to stress it in any way you want that you can know because cars in those days weren't as reliable as they are today yeah and um and then In the race One started changing gears holding the He put his foot on the accelerator and ran out of Patrol because he wasn't doing that in practice, so silly little things like that, yeah, you know, and we actually went to Monza.

Before that it was in Silverston and I got the wrong turns and I lost a place and I said that's in all the papers in Italy. He says the equipment is useless, you know, the old man says everyone in my office next Monday morning. so I got there and I told Jill we had to get the exhaust out of the tunnels, yeah, because because of the wide engine, you're at a disadvantage anyway and uh, for Gary just no, no, no, no, so I said to Jel, let's go. talk about this anyway he said I said come on they came in there and they wanted us I said we shouldn't fight we shouldn't fight with ourselves we should fight with other people and they agreed and he said what do you want?

I want the exhaust pipes removed and he said Jill, what do you think? Yes, Jill, yes, yes, and they took it down. We went to Monza and the car had more downforce and was faster. It really made a difference, but at Monza I think you were saying he. He used qualifying tires the whole time, you didn't, but in the qualifying session you still rated him well. I worked on the car he worked on trying to be the fastest, which is a disadvantage because I wanted to get the car. So when qualifying came I was faster than him because you set it up right.

I worked on the car setup because once you get into qualifying you use the same tires, yeah, you know. You weren't using fast tires, were you? You don't learn much from it, yeah, when you have the championship in sight like that, would you think this is the year you would have tried harder than any other time? I know you would always have been competitive and demanding, but this year is special, he won the first two races so I was the number one driver on my contract, that was pressure, yes, so I probably went to another level and lowered the head and said and um yeah and I won the championship yeah this is the call we pushed in qualifying when you turned the hairpins um before the race you mean no we were talking about Monaco yeah that one which I crashed on the last lap. pool and I got second place on the grid, in this one you would eventually always touch me because I was on the B side, I was touching the guard when you came out of the corner, well, sort of like that, you know, and then I wasn't there. faster and Jill was getting faster and I was getting faster and then I started playing the inside and the outside because the more you could get on the last lap it would be like that, yeah, because those days the camera angles don't show All of these things. but I remember you know last year B Staffen was a family he did 410 on that second half of the lap bending the arm coat um but that's what you were doing but you were also bending the machine a little bit.

I liked it, I mean, I did it. I had a very good record in Monaco. I just like driving, now I support and the engine is incredibly low, that's the Flat 12, so it's Flat 12, which was a disadvantage once the winged cars came because you couldn't get as much. air under the car red Michelin tires I think it was an advantage, yes, because with the first radials you had to adapt a lot to the ground effect. You didn't adapt. No, I'm not sure why, but the speeds let you know. We were in third gear one year and the next year you're in fifth gear on the same corner and the guardrails hadn't been changed or anything, so it was a big step from not being a wing car to a car with a wing inside the wing. cockpit, there are some control knobs in there that I don't recognize, the gear shift obviously looks familiar to me and you haven't seen there, Ferrari had all the things like this for the first second and the third, yeah, and I said, well, why ?

Why are we doing that? Because your gearbox is what regulates it, so you're almost confusing it and that's why they cut it off there and um, so it didn't have that just to be able to reverse, yeah and like that. The other side What is that little one that is to change? It's the roll bar. Anti roll bar. Yes. I didn't. It didn't do anything I ever felt. Will you miss it? You know, at first I always thought I'd love to go. Coming back to Monaco and doing another race in Monaco after I retired, but now you know, I've gone so far back, I enjoyed the 40, that suit that was yes, for racing, yes, there wasn't a lot of pressure on the kit.

Well, it was wonderful to come back to Formula 1, you know, because I don't really go to many races, so it was very special for me. Would it be okay if we turned it on later, sure, just one more time before? before I send it, yeah, I mean, sound is sound, because every car has a different sound and I think it was quite exciting in those days, something you don't see now. Thank you, it has been a real pleasure to hear your stories. and yes, I hope these cars go to another happy owner, take care of them and maybe you can if that owner lets you out in Monaco, we will see you back in action, no, please, no, you have to take off your monkey.