The Jordan F1 car that stole the show at 79MM

The Jordan 195, a 750PS (552kW) V10-powered car that took part in the 1995 Formula 1 season, very quickly became one of my favourite cars in attendance at this year’s Members’ Meeting. The V10 Era demonstration featured a handful of truly special cars, but this one, with owner Steve Griffiths behind the wheel, sang in a different octave to the rest.

During its active years, the 195 was driven by Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine, both would go on to drive for Ferrari alongside Michael Schumacher, and scored points on several occasions with Jordan ending the season sixth in the constructors’ championship.

The car itself is chassis three, that Irvine drove to a podium finish at the Canadian Grand Prix in ’95, and to all intents and purposes, it’s the same now as it was then. The engine has been rebuilt, but I found the car connected to a retro Compaq PC, as it would have been on F1 grids almost 30 years ago. It’s a wonderfully simplistic thing, with no aero to speak of besides the smooth and flowing bodywork and that huge rear wing. The driver feels incredibly prone, sitting at the very front of the car in an open and relatively unprotected cockpit compared to the enclosed cocoons of modern F1.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this particular car is that it hasn’t run, at all, since it left the F1 paddock for the last time in 1995. It spent 12 years at the Peugeot Museum, before sitting in a garage near Magny Cours for more than a decade. Steve bought the car in October 2019, and since then has been waiting for a reason to get it going again.

Opportunity came when he was invited to bring the car to be a part of the V10 Era demonstration at the 79^th Members’ Meeting, and in the weeks building up to the event, he worked hard to get this incredible machine working. Steve explained when he got the invitation: “It was spread in a million pieces, everywhere. It didn’t have a fuel cell in it last weekend so it was right down to the wire. The idea was to run it somewhere on a runway prior to bringing it here but we just ran out of time.”

So, this really was the acid test for a project 27 years in the making. Nobody really knew whether it would indeed make it out for the demo, but there was absolutely no doubt in Steve’s mind that it simply had to be running. “It needs to run, it’s a living thing, isn’t it? It’s ceased to become an ornament and it’s now a proper car. It’s living again.”

It was clear this was a proud moment for Steve and his team. This was why he had brought the car, and he couldn't wait to get going. Even some last-minute issues on the way to the assembly area couldn’t stop him from taking to the Motor Circuit. “It refused to start. It wouldn’t have it. So, I said look, we’ve got one shot at this, you push, I’ll grab a gear, if it goes, crack on. And it did.”

And it really did. And he made sure to push that Peugeot V10 as far as he could. While the rest of the cars in this astounding demonstration sounded fantastic, the 195 was in a class of its own. Before you could see him, you knew when Steve was coming around Woodcote and then flooring it as he exited the Chicane, pulling gears at an extraordinary rate as he soared through the rev range. It was as though we were back in 1995, and the Jordan was racing once again. He told me: “It’s given me so much grief in the last two and half months, so I gave it a bit back.” We approve Steve. We approve. It’s safe to say the sound of that screaming V10 pressing on towards 17,000rpm will live long in my memory.

Photography by Joe Harding.