One of the more unusual novelties that the Goodwood Festival of Speed throws up with each time it assembles machines from motor racing history this year was the long-forgotten Life 190 with its unusual self-built 3.5-litre W12 engine (three banks of four cylinders) and dubious claim of being possibly the most unsuccessful Formula 1 car ever to hit the race tracks. Campaigned during the 1990 grand prix season the car, fitted with an engine that was reckoned to have only around 70 percent of the power of its rivals had, holds the distinction of failing to get through prequalifying in all of the 14 races it attempted to enter during that season in the hands briefly first of Australian driver Gary Brabham and then the veteran Bruno Giacomelli.

It was entered at Goodwood earlier this month by Lorenzo Prandina in Class 10: High Tech Grand Prix Cars - Aerodynamics, Active Suspension And Complex Computing Take Hold In F1 although it can hardly qualify itself for any of this description. Nevertheless it is a very interesting piece of F1 history and at the time a highly ambitious project and the distinctive car (with its then-fashionable narrow nose and cockpit and low sidepods that gave way to a bulky engine cover needed to package the engine) was the centre of much attention as many visitors dredged their memory banks to remember this red car from 19 years ago. Usefully it turned up in the paddock with a spare 3.5-litre W12 engine that was mounted on a stand alongside allowing visitors to examine close up the unusual W-formation of three banks of cylinders and a triangular-shaped engine block. This distinct engine formation has always tempted a pursuit by innovative engineers as in theory the unit offers the compact dimensions of a V8 with the power of a V12, although in reality successfully realising this has remained a dream for most. As well as being driven up the "hill" at Goodwood by Prandina, racing legend Derek Bell also squeezed himself behind the wheel.

The team, known as Life Racing Engines, was set up by Ernesto Vita (hence the name 'Life') and was based in Modena. The team arrived in F1 in an era in the late 1980s and early 1990s when many small but mostly unsuccessful Italian outfits were popping up everywhere, such as Coloni, EuroBrun, FIRST, Minardi, Modena Lamborghini and Andrea Moda. Only the Faenza-based Minardi team (now under the ownership of Red Bull) has survived the test of time although it only managed to haul itself off the back of the grid when the energy drinks giant started to pump its millions in.

The single Life chassis, dubbed the 190, was one that had been initially been the work of well-travelled designer Ricard Divilla (with subsequent input from other engineers after he dissociated himself from the project) for the stillborn FIRST team which was being put together by racing-driver-turned-team-owner Lamberto Leoni and targeted at an F1 campaign during the 1989 season. The car was reputedly so dangerous that Divilla advised anyone from getting in it when he saw it finally built. However it failed the mandatory FIA crash test and the FIRST team never raced it. In 1990 this car turned up in the hands of the new Life Racing Engines outfit but was now fitted with the team's self-built W12 engine which it hoped to showcase. Gary Brabham started off the season driving for the team but with the car usually more than 30 seconds a lap off the pace of the next slowest car in pre-qualifying he jumped ship after a couple of races to be replaced by former Alfa Romeo F1 factory driver Bruno Giacomelli. The team soldiered on through the season but never got close to the pre-qualifying pace and they finally ditched the sluggish W12 in favour of a conventional Judd V8 unit for the final couple of races, although this made very little difference. At the end of the season the team vanished.

In Class 10: High Tech Grand Prix Cars - Aerodynamics, Active Suspension And Complex Computing Take Hold In F1 the Life 190 was joined by several more successful grand prix cars of the era, including the Ferrari F300, the first of the highly successful red machine from the Ross Brawn/Rory Byrne era which was built for the 1998 F1 season and although it took six F1 wins in the hands of Michael Schumacher it narrowly missed out on the title at the very last round. Joined these two red Italian machines in class in the Goodwood paddock was the Benetton-Ford B193 (1993) and the Leyton House-Judd CG901B (1990).