Grand Prix. The 701 had distinctive aerofoil-profile fuel tanks at the sides of the car designed by Peter Wright of Specialised Mouldings; Wright had been involved with BRM's abortive ground-effect programme in the late sixties and later worked on the groundbreaking Lotus 78. The 701's tanks lacked endplates and skirts to help generate any meaningful ground effect. Herd (in Mike Lawrence's history of the team Four Guys and a Telephone) described the 701 as essentially a good 1969 car and not what he would have done had he been able to run a small team for a star like Rindt - the 701 was designed and built very quickly and he claims he would have built something more like the 711. For the 1971 Formula One season March Engineering came up with the remarkable 711 chassis, which had aerodynamics by Frank Costin and an ovoid front wing described as the Spitfire (for its shape) or "tea-tray" (for its elevation from the car) wing. The car took no wins, but Peterson finished second on four occasions, ending as runner-up in the World Championship. Alfa Romeo V8 powered cars were occasionally entered, to little avail (following on from an equally unsuccessful Alfa program with McLaren). The 1972 Formula One season completely failed to capitalise on the promise March showed in 1970-71. Three distinct models of the car were used, beginning with the 721, which was a development of the 711. Peterson and Niki Lauda then drove the disappointing experimental 721X factory cars (using an Alfa Romeo transverse gearbox and intended to have a low polar-moment, anticipating in some ways the much more successful Tyrrell 005/006 series). Frank Williams ran regular 711 and 721 customer cars for Henri Pescarolo and Carlos Pace. The 721X was deemed to be a disaster and abandoned, but the team saw a way out; customer Mike Beuttler and his backers ordered an F1 car, and the team produced the 721G in nine days (the G stood for Guinness Book Of Records as the car was built so quickly) by fitting a Cosworth DFV and larger fuel tanks to the 722 F2 chassis (not as desperate an experiment as it may have sounded -- John Cannon commissioned a Formula 5000 car which was built to a very similar scheme). The 721G was light and quick, and the works team soon built their own chassis. The 721G set the trend