Champ Car Chassis Change-Up

A series in serious need of revival is what one could have described the Champ Car Atlantic Championship as just a few months ago. The engine supplier that had paced the series for many years left for other motorsports pastures, and the cars that competed within the program were getting old.

A Swift Rescue
Then, in July 2005, Swift Engineering bid aggressively to earn the contract to design and build a new race chassis for the historic race series, and therefore started the domino effect that has led to the presently new Yokohama Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Championship powered by Mazda.


The chassis in question is called the 016.a, which replaces Swift's 014.a, that had been the exclusive racecar for the Atlantic series (the "a" in the chassis number belies its purpose). Swift engineers and designers knew they had a tight timeframe in which to produce this new chassis, and they challenged themselves immediately by deciding that the 016.a racer would not simply be an evolutionary model. Rather, it would be a whole new racecar.


And just like that, the 016.a went from a blank sheet of paper to finished chassis in just 204 days. It was unveiled at the 2006 Champ Car launch party February 14th at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Just 22 days later, the largest delivery of racecar chassis at one time in U.S. motorsports history took place at Swift's San Clemente, CA headquarters. Forty chassis were delivered on that chilly March 8th, it was an important day not only in Swift's history, but for American motorsports in general too, as this was a considerable achievement.


Swift Engineering had just gone 0-40 in a mere 226 days and sold all 40 chassis at the very reasonable price of $79,500, almost $30,000 less than its predecessor. The company was able to cut costs using techniques it calls "Lean Manufacturing" and a little bit of motorsports magic, referred to as "Swift Thinking."