Being a top-notch racing driver is not necessarily the key to running a world-beating Formula 1 team, proving that Bruce McLaren and Il Commendatore were anomalies, rather than men who blazed the path all others would follow. But oh, how they tried. John Surtees won on the Snaefell Mountain Course on a bike. He won at the Nürburgring in an F1 car. In fact, he remains the only man to win the world championship on both two wheels and four. In an era of pinpoint specificity, he may be the only man ever to accomplish the feat. Certainly, Surtees is a hardy soul, but as a team owner, grand success eluded him. Nevertheless, let?s have a gander at his TS16, shall we"

We ran across the car in the paddock during the Monterey Motorsports Reunion and found ourselves smitten by its utter racecarness. The TS16 arrived in 1974, a transitional era in F1. Just six years before, Colin Chapman had bolted a wing to the era?s flying cigars. By the time Surtees? second F1 car design arrived, the TS9 of 1971, side pods had entered the equation, but the cars still featured much in the way of metal construction. Its competition included the brutally effective McLaren M23, which won 16 races between 1973 and 1977, and the groundbreaking Lotus 72, then nearing the end of its impressive career. In 1975, the TS16?s second season ? like much of the rest of the field ? Surtees found itself totally outclassed by the utterly dominant Ferrari 312T, which carried Niki Lauda to his his first F1 champ...