Riviera F1 Team / CarsRave
We continue our journey here at CarsRave, bringing you the stories of ambitious projects that failed to make their mark in the past. We always try to gather the best information possible behind these forgotten stories, and our next feature is the fascinating tale of the Riviera-Cosworth F1 team, a project that never even made it to the starting grid.
The Riviera project was planned for the 1980 F1 season and was the brainchild of Italian racing driver Alberto Colombo.
It was an ambitious attempt by a driver to create his own path into F1, combining Italian enthusiasm with the familiar and proven Cosworth DFV V8 engine, but the dream would collapse before the car was properly completed.
For more than four decades, the Riviera remained one of F1’s ghost projects, a car that existed in drawings, components and unfinished plans rather than on the starting grid, only many years later would the story take another remarkable turn!
Riviera-Cosworth: Alberto Colombo’s F1 Dream
Alberto Colombo was already familiar with F1 when the Riviera project began, he had previously competed in F1 with the Merzario team, although his time at the top level was extremely limited.
Instead of waiting for another opportunity, Colombo became involved in a much more ambitious idea, the plan was to build an Italian F1 team for the 1980, with Colombo combining the roles of driver and the man behind the Riviera-Cosworth project.
The car became known under several names, including Riviera-Cosworth, Colombo-Cosworth and simply Riviera F1. The project was supported by Riviera SRL and a group of investors, while the team intended to use the Cosworth DFV, the naturally aspirated V8 that had powered some of F1’s most successful cars during the previous decade.
On paper, the formula made sense, the Cosworth was well known, relatively accessible compared with developing a completely new engine and had already proven capable of winning at the highest level, the difficult part was every surrounding it.
Building a Formula 1 Car on a Limited Budget
Creating a F1 team has always been expensive, and the situation was no different in 1980.
Colombo’s F1 project attempted to reduce costs wherever possible, including acquiring equipment and components connected with the recently collapsed Kauhsen F1 team.
Kauhsen had entered F1 in 1979 but its adventure had ended quickly, for a new project with limited resources, purchasing available equipment rather than starting entirely from scratch was an understandable solution.
Engineer Giorgio Valentini was involved in the design, while the chassis was reportedly built in Britain by Thompson, however, combining existing parts with a newly designed chassis created serious problems.
The Riviera was reportedly becoming too heavy, an immediate concern in an era when every kilogram could make a significant difference to performance, a small independent team could perhaps survive with less power or a smaller budget, but starting an overweight car was another major handicap. And that was only one of the problems.
The Sponsorship That Disappeared
The Riviera project needed money to survive, and its financial foundation was never particularly secure, according to reports, a major sponsorship arrangement failed shortly before the start of the 1980.
F1 cars couldn’t simply be built and stored until more money arrived, the team needed to finish the car, prepare equipment, travel to races, employ mechanics and engineers and cover all the other costs involved in competing in F1.
The investors eventually decided not to continue, for Colombo, the decision came as a devastating surprise.
His F1 project disappeared before it had the opportunity to prove whether the car could actually compete, the Riviera-Cosworth would never reach a Grand Prix!
Did the Riviera-Cosworth Ever Race?
No, the Riviera-Cosworth never raced in F1, in fact, the project didn’t even reach a single race weekend, the car was never officially homologated for competition, and the original project was abandoned before the car could be fully completed and properly tested.
The Riviera therefore joined a fascinating group of F1 cars that were planned but never became part of the championship itself.
Colombo’s dream effectively ended, rather than becoming the driver of his own F1 team, he returned to Formula 2, it was an abrupt end to one of the more unusual private F1 projects of the era.
Why the Riviera F1 Project Failed
The Riviera-Cosworth was not destroyed by one single problem, it was the combination of several difficulties arriving at the worst possible moment.
The loss of sponsorship was the most serious issue because a small independent project simply couldn’t continue without funding, at the same time, concerns existed about the weight and competitiveness of the car itself.
The team was also trying to prepare a F1 operation with limited resources, using a mixture of acquired equipment and newly developed components, even if the financial backing had survived, the Riviera would still have faced a difficult battle against more established teams.
Eventually, the people financing the project decided that continuing was no longer worth the risk, and just like that, Riviera-Cosworth F1 project disappeared, no race entry, no qualifying attempt.
The Ghost Car Returns More Than 40 Years Later
The Riviera story could have ended there, but more than four decades later, historic drawings and surviving components began to reappear, enthusiasts and restorers started working to understand that original car was supposed to become.
Using the available blueprints and parts, missing components were recreated and the unfinished project was gradually brought back to life, the completed recreation became known as the Riviera F1-70.
What makes the story particularly remarkable is that the car eventually did something the original project never managed to achieve, it finally went onto a racetrack.
More than 40 years after Albero Colombo’s F1 dream collapsed, the Riviera finally made a historic track appearance as a tribute to the man behind the project, Colombo himself had passed away in January 2024, making the later completion of the car an especially emotional chapter in its story.
The Riviera would never become a race winner, it never even started a F1 race, but perhaps that is exactly what makes the story so fascinating.
Editor’s NOTE: We are sorry that we do not have any images to share from this project, but we still wanted to bring its forgotten story to CarsRave.
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