Automobiles Gonfaronnaises Sportives
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| Full name | Automobiles Gonfaronnaises Sportives |
|---|---|
| Base | Gonfaron, France |
| Founder(s) | Henri Julien |
| Noted staff |
Cyril de Rouvre Patrizio Cantù Hughes de Chaunac Gabriele Raffanelli Christian Vanderpleyn |
| Noted drivers |
 Ivan Capelli Pascal Fabre Roberto Moreno Philippe Streiff Joachim Winkelhock Gabriele Tarquini Yannick Dalmas Stefan Johansson Fabrizio Barbazza Olivier Grouillard
|
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| First entry | 1986 Italian Grand Prix |
| Races entered | 80 |
| Engines | Motori Moderni, Cosworth |
| Constructors' Championships |
0 |
| Drivers' Championships |
0 |
| Race victories | 0 (best finish: 6th, 1987 Australian Grand Prix and 1989 Mexican Grand Prix) |
| Pole positions | 0 (best grid position: 10th, 1988 Canadian Grand Prix) |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| Final entry | 1991 Spanish Grand Prix |
Automobiles Gonfaronnaises Sportives (also known as AGS and Gonfaron Sports Cars) was a small French racecar constructor that competed in various racing categories over a period of thirty years, including Formula One from 1986 to 1991.
AGS survived as a prosperous Formula One driving school, in Le Luc, near Gonfaron.
The team was founded by the French mechanic, Henri Julien, who ran a filling station, the "Garage de l'Avenir", in Gonfaron, a provincial French village. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Julien regularly attended racing events in minor classes. Although not an outstanding driver, the technical knowledge he gained eventually prompted him to start constructing racing cars.
Julien's first car, the AGS JH1, saw the light of day in 1969. It was a petite monoposto, dedicated to the "Formule France". The car was designed by Julien's former apprentice, the Belgian mechanic Christian Vanderpleyn, who had been with the garage (and the racing team) since the very late 1950s and who would stay on until 1988. Soon, AGS went ahead and produced its own Formula 3 cars which were ambitious but not good enough to compete seriously with the state-of-art Martinis which dominated that series in the 1970s.
AGS took another step ahead in 1978 when the team started competing in the European Formula 2 Championship. Still, the car - by now the AGS JH15 - was self-penned (by Vanderpleyn), self-built and self-run. Formula 2 was a difficult task for the small team, racing 1978 and 1979 without scoring any championship points. The early 1980s were somewhat better. AGS was one of the few teams who ran its own cars (Maurer, Minardi and Merzario were the others), and eventually the team was able to score points regularly. Soon some victories came, too. AGS made history when works driver Philippe Streiff won the final race of Formula 2 in 1984, using an AGS JH19C.
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