Les Galapiats

Les Galapiats is a colloquial French expression meaning the children of a suburb or area. Through the Les Galapiats programme, supported by Toyota France (TFR), suburban kids have the opportunity to build and drive real racing cars.

The Les Galapiats programme aims to educate teenagers through manual work and motivate them to take up apprenticeships in automotive trades. By working in groups the children also learn the spirit of teamwork.

The programme engages the children outside of school hours, on weekends and during holidays. Working together the children design and build a two-third sized replica of an F1 racing car. Once complete, Les Galapiats also get to drive the cars.

Thirty-five children aged between 10 and 18 joined the project. They are assisted by twenty volunteers, mostly 18 to 25 year olds who also grew up in the suburbs. A number of teachers have also joined.

After a basic apprenticeship on the new Yaris engine and with drawings of the GF108-PM, the children work independently to complete the construction. This includes tasks such as assembling the welded frame and design of the composite material body. All work is performed under the supervision of adults from the Les Galapiats programme. During the summer vacation there will be a workshop to finalise the engine and frame connection.

TFR contributes to the project by providing materials (for example, seven Yaris 65 VVT-i 4-cylinder engines and parts) and know-how through its technical education institute, Universite Toyota.

Olivier Panis, the former F1 driver and official Toyota F1 driver is the Godfather of the project. In December 2007 he visited the Les Galapiats workshop in Grenoble together with Michel Gardel, President of Toyota France and Michel Destot, MP and Mayor of Grenoble. The group inspected the work of Les Galapiats and encouraged them to continue their good work.

The completed F1 cars will be officially launched in February 2009. More details of the launch will be announced later this year.