When Jordan launched the EJ12 at Brussels airport, a freight hub of new sponsor DHL, the team rolled its Honda-powered 2002 Formula 1 contender out of the side of a just-landed Airbus 300 after it had been declared that there was an urgent delivery for a Mr Jordan. Nice stunt, Eddie, but it had been trumped years before when British racing car constructor Hawke took the wraps off its new – and, as it turned out, one and only – Formula 3 car in mid-air!
Hawke Racing Cars had been purchased by airline owner Mike Keegan in 1974, the year in which son and future F1 driver Rupert had raced – and regularly crashed – one of its DL11 Formula Ford 1600s. By the end of 1975 he had recruited an up-and-coming designer by the name of Adrian Reynard to produce an F1 chassis, only to change his mind early the following year and decide that he wanted an F3 car for his son to race. The hurriedly produced DL18 was the result.
