Brabham BT52

Thirty-five years ago Nelson Piquet became the first turbo-powered world champion, driving Gordon Murray’s beautiful BMW-engined Brabham BT52. In a special retro feature, Mark Hughes remembers this iconic ‘dart of pleasure’

The BT52 has gone down in history as one of the most original and iconic of all F1 cars. But its simple dart-like contours – with the radiators sited well behind the cockpit, giving a pencil-thin front and a fanned-out rear – came as Murray’s practical response to an 11^th hour regulation change.

I was commissioned to create this piece to show how unique the BMW-engined Brabham BT52 really was.