After the horrifying death of popular Brabham driver Elio de Angelis during a test at Paul Ricard, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile decided to bring an end to the reign of the turbo monsters of Formula One. Like the contemporary demise of Group B rallying, the turbo era had simply gone too far.

Power levels of up to 1400 horsepower were reached during qualifying runs on tires that lasted merely a lap, putting tremendous strain on the drivers. Though the race setup usually offered between 750 and 900 horsepower and revolved around fuel economy thanks to a refueling ban and decreased tank size, a ride in a turbo car was not something to be taken lightly.

Aside from the danger, the technological complexity, questionable reliability and immense cost of running a turbocharged F1 car were widely lamented by smaller, lesser funded teams. Aside from the large corporations like Honda, BMW, Renault, Ferrari and TAG/Porsche, no one seemed to be able to produce an even vaguely competitive engine.

With a lesser budget, the smaller teams were consigned to using subpar machinery from independent builders like Hart, Motori Moderni, Zakspeed, or the somehow fantastically terrible big names of Ford-Cosworth and Alfa Romeo. Clearly, this situation wasn't meant to last.

Life was hard for a small team like Zakspeed in the turbo era. Life was hard for a small team like Zakspeed in the turbo era.

Starting in 1987, the FIA moved to limit the turbos' maximum allowable boost to 4 bar (58 psi), a first step towards phasing out the boosted brutes. This decision was informed by past mistakes, as the infamous 1966 switch from 1.5L to 3.0L had been far to sudden and drastic for the vast majority of manufacturers.

The following season saw boost pressures lowered even further to 2.5 bar (36 psi), resulting in more and more "atmo" cars joining the fray. Finally, forced induction was banned outright for the 1989 season, opening the floodgates for a wide variety of overly ambitious engine gurus looking to display their wares.

Cosworth had something of a monopoly in the early years. Cosworth had something of a monopoly in the early years.

The initial surge of naturally aspirated engines was lead by Cosworth, in a serendipitous parallel to the 1966 engine switch. In fact, until the advent of Judd in 1988, the Cosworth was the only option for teams looking to buy into the atmo revolution nice and early.

Diversification was on the horizon however, as Cosworth and Judd were joined by Yamaha in 1989, and talks of a Motori Moderni design already on the way. At around the same time, a French inventor noticed Formula One's drastic engine switch, and decided to try and take a piece of the new pie.

Guy Negre (fourth from the left), founder of MGN. Guy Negre (fourth from the left), founder of MGN.

Seeing a gap in the emerging market, French automotive engineer Guy Negre set out to design what he considered the ultimate Formula One engine. Negre had worked at Renault for most of his career, only to become an independent engineering consultant in 1978, with the founding of his SACMA organization.

Though the most popular layout for naturally aspirated engines seemed to be a V8, Negre had radically different plans. As Honda and Renault pioneered the first successful V10 engines, and Ferrari returned to the tried and tested V12, Guy elected to combine the best of both worlds in one engine block.

Because of this, Guy Negre settled on the "broad arrow" W12 layout, a concept not seen in automotive use since the massive land speed record racers of the 1930s. With four cylinders divided in three banks, he expected the engine to have both the compact dimensions of a V8, and the power and torque of a V12.

As if choosing an eccentric pre-war configuration wasn't enough, Negre also moved to finally incorporate a technology he had been working on for the better part of two decades: rotary valves.

In a traditional four stroke combustion engine, the intake and exhaust are controlled by poppet valves, which move up and down to open and close both ports. This system worked perfectly normal in everyday use, but encountered severe limitations in Formula One.

Since the poppets were actuated by a camshaft and then returned to their starting position by metal springs, there was a limit to how high the engine could possibly rev. At a certain speed, the springs would simply be unable to recoil fast enough, causing the valves to fall out of sequence with the combustion process, a phenomenon known as "valve float".

A schematic view of a traditional poppet valve system. A schematic view of a traditional poppet valve system.

The system Negre had developed however used two discs with two chambers cut out in them. Placed on top of the cylinder head, the discs would open and close the intake and exhaust ports by rotating. This motion would scoop up either clean intake air or dirty exhaust in the same way a Wankel rotary engine did, thereby enabling far higher rpm than a traditional poppet valve supported by springs.

Guy Negre had previously attempted to apply his brainchild to road car engines from Renault, BMW and Peugeot. His test engine based on a Renault 8 Gordini powerplant eventually netted 150 horsepower from a diminutive 1.3L four cylinder. Sadly though, oil seal problems prevented the engine from reaching production.

Negre kept toiling away at the concept, but was unable to attract the attention of large manufacturers. Frustrated with their unwillingness to incorporate his work, he founded SACMA. There he focused on developing a rotary valve aircraft motor, before working on a rotary valve kit for the legendary Peugeot 205 GTI.

Guy Negre supervising a bench test of the MGN 01. Guy Negre supervising a bench test of the MGN 01.

With the Formula One project, he attempted to build his first complete automotive engine, as his previous efforts had all been based around retrofitted kits. The end result of his exceptionally left field design brief would turn out to be the MGN 01.

The 3.5L broad arrow looked like nothing else ever tried in the pinnacle of motorsport. Not only was the triple four cylinder layout completely unique, it sported some unusually small and flat looking cylinder heads. This was an obvious result of the rotary valve system, which took up a lot less space than a poppet valve setup.

The asymmetric intake layout instantly gave the 01 away. The asymmetric intake layout instantly gave the 01 away.

Another striking feature was the location of the intakes and exhausts. Weirdly, there was just one set of intake trumpets on the left, with two occupying the right side of the block. This "siamesed" layout had been chosen not only to save space, but also to provide the engine with fresh air all around.

With a symmetrical layout for all three cylinder heads, the intakes for the right-hand side bank would be forced underneath the bodywork, exposing it to higher temperatures and making a large cutout in the bodywork necessary. As a result, the head was mirrored to the left-hand side, putting the intake in the middle and the exhausts out to the side, just like a V-engine. A similar setup would later be utilized by the infamous Life L190.

Though the engine was ready, Guy Negre's renamed Moteurs Guy Negre outfit had no real way of getting it into F1. His company focused exclusively on engine development, and was therefore unable to produce its own chassis. With this in mind, Negre contacted notorious backmarkers Automobiles Gonfaronnaises Sportives, or AGS for short.

AGS had been in Formula One since 1986, entering the Italian Grand Prix that year with a car cobbled together from a 1983 Renault RE30 chassis, a heavily used Motori Moderni 615-90 V6 turbo engine and a bag of Formula 3000 parts. At that time, the team consisted of just seven men, and operated out of a small garage in Gonfaron in the South of France.

AGS provided the JH22 for MGN's testing duties. AGS provided the JH22 for MGN's testing duties.

By 1989, the tiny team, now heavily expanded and under new ownership, was starting to find its footing in F1, even expanding to a two car effort. Though AGS had immediately taken up Cosworth engines in 1987 following the announced phasing out of turbo engines, they were more than willing to cash in by selling one of their old, useless chassis to Negre.

As such, Guy Negre found himself in the possession of a 1987 JH22 chassis, formerly powered by a Cosworth DFZ V8. The bulky, ungainly car was still based around the remains of the Renault tub, but the reliable engine generally kept it alive long enough to enable it to finish races several laps down on the leaders.

Miraculously, the car even managed to score a single point in the hands of Brazilian hopeful Roberto Moreno, who wrestled the car to 6th place on the streets of Adelaide. Considering the terrible performance of its successors, it had thus far been the most successful car AGS had ever constructed.

Wasting no time at all, Guy Negre and his team set about modifying the JH22 to accept the strange W12. On paper, the swap already seemed like a beneficial one. At 120 kg (264 lbs), it was already 30 kg (66 lbs) lighter than the Cosworth. Moreover, Negre claimed an output of 630 horsepower at 11.5000 rpm, ten more than the V8.

Despite an at the time very impressive redline of 12.500 rpm, the power figure it still compared unfavorably with the 650 horsepower Renault RS1, the 660 horsepower Ferrari Tipo 35/5 and the 675 horsepower Honda RA109-E. But for a small outfit like Negre's it was not bad at all.

The modified JH22 was then sent to Circuit du Grand Sambuc, a small, uninspiring two kilometer club track near Marseille. With a man by the name of Phillipe Billot at the wheel, the car successfully completed a number of laps without any major issues. This was however not Guy Negre's biggest concern. He expected the engine to hold up, but was shocked by its lack of pace.

The promised 630 horsepower was never achieved, with the real performance closer to 500 horsepower. With a 100 horsepower deficit to even the slowest and oldest engines still in use in the sport, the MGN 01's future seemed rather bleak.

The disappointing test results spelled the end for the MGN project, as no independent F1 team was brave or stupid enough to burn themselves on the exotic, immature machine. AGS, MGN's only real inroad to the F1 circus, was quite happy to keep on trucking with their supply of Cosworth engines as well, sealing the W12's fate for good.

After the implosion of his F1-dream, Guy Negre found a customer in Norma Auto Concept, a French sportscar constructor looking for an engine for the new 3.5L Group C class. The resulting M6 graced the paddock at Le Mans in 1990, but never made it out of its pit box, as the W12 adamantly refused to start.

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Following yet another major setback, Guy Negre finally abandoned his rotary valve technology. Instead, he would fold MGN and co-found Motor Development International, a company focused on developing a compressed air engine for automotive use. This time around though, he was smart enough to avoid trying to apply his ideas to the ruthless meat grinder known as Formula One.