Mondiale M88S – County Down’s 1980s Formula Ford Contender | Season 6 – Episode 21
Wheels Feb 24, 2026
Built in County Down, the 1988 Mondiale M88S Formula Ford 1600 quickly earned a reputation as one of Ireland’s most competitive late-1980s single-seaters. Produced by the Mondiale Car Company in Bangor, County Down it showcased bronze-welded joints on the frame and the standard Ford 1600 Kent engine. With drivers Jonathan McGall and Bernard Dolan at the wheel, the M88S proved its strength against rivals from Crosslé, Van Diemen and Swift Cooper, performing strongly across Irish and British Formula Ford championships.
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FORMULA FORD
Formula Ford is an entry level class of single seater, open wheel racing and has long been a first step for drivers progressing from karting toward the higher ranks of motorsport, including Formula One. The category mixes career focused young drivers with amateurs and allows freedom in chassis design and engine choice, unlike most one make series. Cars use steel space frame construction rather than monocoques, keeping costs lower and enabling many manufacturers to compete. With no wings to create aerodynamic downforce, performance depends entirely on mechanical grip, producing close racing with frequent overtaking. Tyres may be slick or treaded, usually supplied by Dunlop or Avon and with limited engine modification the field remains tightly matched.
LESLIE DRYSDALE
The Mondiale Car Company was established in 1984 by former Crosslé designer Leslie Drysdale, together with Irish Formula Ford 1600 team owners Dennis McGall and Colin Lees. With Leslie’s engineering skill and the competitive insight of drivers Colin Lees, Dennis McGall and Tommy Acheson, the new company set out with a single, shared ambition: to build racing cars capable of winning on the international stage. Work began in October 1983 and the team moved quickly, completing their first Mondiale Formula Ford 1600 by March the following year. The car was sold to Irish born racer Arnie Black.
“We set out with the goal of building exceptional cars that weren’t just fast but were built to last,” Leslie recalled in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph during his 80th birthday celebrations and the 40th anniversary of Mondiale in January 2025. “I was always interested in mechanical things like watches, bicycles, motorbikes, cars and so on and taking them apart and putting them back together.” Leslie told the Belfast Telegraph.
“The fact that so many of our cars are still racing today shows that we achieved that goal. Mondiale wasn’t just a company; it was a dream shared by a group of people who believed in what we could create together.”
“I remember that feeling,” Leslie says of seeing the 1600 emerge for the first time.
“Also good feelings like having the first five places at Phoenix Park and the first three places at Mondello Park in the Irish Formula Ford Festival. But the real buzz was always the next project.”
THE ENGINEERING
What set Drysdale’s Formula Ford Mondiale cars apart was the engineering at their core. The 1988 M88S chassis, though part of the M86S and M87S lineage, was completely new and designed with a smaller frontal area at the front bulkhead to cut drag. The radiators were tucked in and the cockpit area was extensively revised and braced to give the driver’s cell greater torsional rigidity while saving weight through reduced bodywork.
A distinctive feature of Mondiale construction was the use of bronze welded or braze welded joints, where the tubes are heated but not melted and bonded with a bronze fillet. This created strong, slightly more ductile joints capable of handling extreme stress without tearing the base metal and they could be reheated, separated and repaired when needed. The method, familiar in high end bicycle frame building, depended on perfect tube fitment and clean joints throughout.
Front suspension geometry on the M88S was refined to reduce camber change, with a new upper pickup point designed to minimise frame damage in an accident. At the rear, reduced camber change was paired with a wider track for improved stability.
Power typically came from the standard 1600 Kent engine produced by Ford, the long-standing backbone of Formula Ford. This naturally aspirated 1600 cc SOHC unit known universally as the ‘Kent’ was simple durable and tuneable.
THE MONDIALE M88S
The car was built around a compact multi-tube space-frame chassis of round, square and rectangular tubing, bronze-welded and stove-enamelled black, with heat-treated aluminium panels closing in the cockpit and undertray. Up front it carried unequal-length chrome-moly wishbones with a pushrod-operated horizontal damper and an adjustable anti-roll bar, while the rear used a fabricated rocker system, aero-section wishbones and a blade-type anti-roll bar that could be adjusted from the cockpit. AP brakes, rack-and-pinion steering and twin side-mounted radiators kept everything responsive and cool.
A seven-piece body, available in eight colours, enclosed a straightforward electrical package of sealed battery, Hella master switch, Bosch ignition coil and modified Lucas starter. Jones and Raceparts instruments provided the essentials, and safety was built around chrome-moly roll hoops, cockpit bracing, a Willans harness, Lifeline extinguisher and a Premier fuel cell. Power went through a lightweight, 5-speed Hewland Mk 9 transaxle “dog box”.
RACING & BUSINESS SUCCESS
Mondiale Formula Ford cars were regular contenders in the Irish and British Formula Ford championships. The M88S proved especially competitive in the late 1980s, with drivers such as Jonathan McGall and Bernard Dolan taking it to strong results. McGall competed at a high level in the 1988 RAC Championship at Oulton Park and the car remained a serious challenger to rivals from Van Diemen and Swift in both national series and at the Formula Ford Festival.
Edmund “Eddie” Irvine Jr from Newtownards, County Down spent time in Formula Ford in the late 1980s, driving a Mondiale in 1987 before rising through the ranks to race in Formula One for Jordan Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari and Jaguar Racing.
Beginning in 1986 Mondiale built cars for the US Barber Pro Series operated by the Skip Barber Racing School. The spec car used a tube-frame Mondiale chassis essentially a Formula Ford 2000 design powered by a 225 hp turbocharged 16-valve engine from Saab. Mondiales were used in the series from 1987 to 1997. The championship itself ran from 1986 to 2003 and became one of North America’s first professional spec open-wheel categories racing mainly on road and street circuits.
Mondiale also supplied durable Formula Ford 1600s for high mileage use in racing driver schools and served as European distributor for Loynings Engine Service.
Through the 1980s and 1990s the company continued to refine its Formula Ford 1600 and Formula Ford 2000 designs, producing competitive, race winning cars that achieved strong results in championships worldwide.
Our thanks to Hugh Cartmill for suggesting this story and to Wayne Pearson’s Heroes of FF1600 Facebook page
Sources of Information, Video and Photo Credits:
Belfast Telegraph – Aine Toner
Ebay – Photo Michael Beaver’s Ff1600 Mondiale M88s Is Gold! Walter Hayes Trophy
Heroes of FF 1600 Facebook Page
Photo credits – Andrew Horrox, K-Town 1600, Matt Stone Cars, Paul Cox
Video credits: Andy Kitson
