Henri Julien ran a filling station called the Garage de l'Avenir in Gonfaron. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he regularly attended racing events in minor classes and, while not a competitive driver himself, developed enough technical expertise to begin constructing his own cars. His former apprentice, Belgian mechanic Christian Vanderpleyn, became the team's central designer and remained with AGS from the late 1950s until 1988.
Julien's first car, the AGS JH1, appeared in 1969 as a single-seater for the Formule France category. AGS subsequently moved into Formula 3 with self-designed cars that were ambitious but could not match the dominant Martini machines. In 1978 the team stepped up to the European Formula 2 Championship with the Vanderpleyn-designed JH15. Results in 1978 and 1979 were modest, but by the early 1980s AGS was one of a small group of teams — alongside Maurer, Minardi, and Merzario — still running its own cars in the category and scoring points regularly. Works driver Philippe Streiff won the final Formula 2 race in 1984 in the JH19C, marking the high point of AGS's junior-formula career.
For 1985, AGS entered the new Formula 3000 category with the JH20, a car based on the Duqueine VG4 Formula 3 chassis and powered by a Cosworth DFV engine prepared by Swiss tuning company Mader. Results in 1985 and 1986 were mediocre.
AGS made its Formula One debut at the 1986 Italian Grand Prix at Monza with fewer than seven employees and still operating from the Garage de l'Avenir. The JH21C was a hybrid of former AGS Formula 3000 components and Renault F1 parts, powered by a Motori Moderni turbo engine — the only time those Carlo Chiti-developed units were supplied to a customer. Italian Ivan Capelli drove but failed to finish in either of AGS's two 1986 appearances.
For their first full Formula One season, Vanderpleyn designed the normally-aspirated JH22 using a Cosworth DFZ. Pascal Fabre, who had driven for AGS in Formula 2 in 1982, was the primary driver and showed reliability, finishing eight of the first nine races, though without serious points contention. In the final two rounds he was replaced by Brazilian Roberto Moreno, who scored AGS's first championship point in Adelaide, leaving the team equal on points with Ligier and the returning March team.
The 1988 season brought a new car, the JH23, and Philippe Streiff as sole driver. Streiff qualified well but reached the chequered flag in only four races. Financially, the team had secured backing from the French Bouygues group, which promised to fund both racing and a new factory outside Gonfaron. Bouygues withdrew mid-project, leaving founder Julien without support and eventually forcing him to sell AGS to French entrepreneur Cyril de Rouvre.
Under new management, turnover in the team's technical structure increased sharply — Vanderpleyn departed to Coloni — and organizational stability collapsed. Before the 1989 season, Streiff suffered paralysis in a testing accident in Brazil, requiring a replacement. Gabriele Tarquini took over and delivered some competitive performances in the first half of 1989, coming close to the points at Monaco and in the United States before finishing sixth in Mexico for AGS's second-ever championship point. The team then struggled through mandatory pre-qualifying, and in the second half of the season Tarquini and Yannick Dalmas rarely passed that stage.
In 1990 AGS continued with Cosworth engines and achieved nothing better than Dalmas's ninth in Spain. By the start of 1991 the financial situation was critical: at the first two grands prix in Brazil and Phoenix the team's mechanics paid for their own hotel rooms. After Tarquini finished eighth in Phoenix — the last classified finish for an AGS car — de Rouvre sold the team to Italian entrepreneurs Patrizio Cantu and Gabriele Rafanelli. They changed the driver lineup, bringing in Stefan Johansson and later Fabrizio Barbazza, and introduced a new car, the JH27. The team entered its final race at the 1991 Spanish Grand Prix, after which it ceased operations.
AGS competed in Formula One for five seasons without the resources that characterised most of the paddock. The team's longevity across grassroots French formulae, Formula 2, and ultimately the World Championship stood as testament to Julien's persistence and Vanderpleyn's design ability operating on minimal budgets. After the racing programme ended, AGS survived as a Formula One driving school based in Le Luc, near Gonfaron.
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