Emeryson Cars

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Emeryson
Surname Emeryson
Companies Emeryson Cars Ltd
Company headquarters Twickenham (1947–1959)
Send (1960–1962)
Team boss United KingdomUnited Kingdom Paul Emery
statistics
First Grand Prix Great Britain 1956
Last Grand Prix Italy 1962
Race driven 5
Constructors' championship 0
Drivers World Championship 0
Race wins 0
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
Points -
Emeryson Formula Junior (1960)
Emeryson F2 / F1 72/71 Prototype

A number of sports and monoposto racing cars were built between the 1930s and 1960s under the name Emeryson . Between 1948 and 1962 Emeryson was also repeatedly represented in Formula 1 races .

The name Emeryson goes back to the Emery family. George Rene Emery and his two sons Paul and Peter Emery produced a number of racing vehicles under this name, partly jointly and partly independently of one another. These were mostly so-called specials, i.e. self-made constructions that were usually created in individual pieces using parts from other makes. It was not until 1960 that both Peter and Paul Emery devoted themselves to the small-scale production of racing cars for Formula Junior and Formula 1 after founding their own companies Emeryson Experimental and Emeryson Cars .

Paul Emery is the best known of the three family members because he was repeatedly represented in the highest motorsport category, Formula 1, with the racing cars he built between 1948 and 1962. Emeryson is thus the only designer alongside Ferrari who has built vehicles for all four Grand Prix racing formulas that were valid between 1947 and 1965. The constructions were always innovative, but often too unusual. Mostly they lacked steadfastness, which was due to the limited financial and material resources of such a sole proprietorship. Nonetheless, Emery achieved a certain fame in British motorsport circles as one of the most ardent and persistent representatives of the "special builders" and one of the few who had managed to keep at least one foot in the doorway to Formula 1 for so many years .

Beginnings

George Emery founded an engineering and electrical company in New Malden , Surrey in 1919 . Right from the start he dealt with the construction of a new type of rotary valve motor and in the following years also built a number of specials on a GN or Gwynne basis. At the age of 14, Paul Emery began an apprenticeship in his father's company in the early 1930s. He quickly turned out to be a practically skilled mechanic, while his father, like his younger brother Peter, placed greater emphasis on sound theoretical knowledge. Paul was also very self-confident, so that there were frequent conflicts between him and his father. Eventually he moved to the Alta Car and Engineering Company in Tolworth , which at that time was already building racing and sports cars with some success. Paul, who also had a talent as a driver, tried in vain to get permission from company boss Geoffrey Taylor to drive for Alta races. Instead, after a while, he managed to reconcile with his father, who in the meantime had made some improvements to his GN Special, mainly to make it more competitive for circuit racing. This mainly involved installing a new front axle, lowering the chassis, and making changes to the combustion chambers and valve inlets on the engine.

George Emery finally realized his son Paul this car available to order in 1938 over the Voiturette race car as part of the Donington Grand Prix to compete. In his first race there, according to his brother's report, he showed an excellent driving performance until he retired with engine failure. On top of that, Paul then had to seal the broken engine on site and paralyze the affected cylinder so that the car could drive home on its own.

During the Second World War , George Emery lost the company in New Malden to a consortium for the manufacture of parts for the aircraft industry and then worked for the Farnborough Vehicle Research Institute . A little later he bought an estate in the nearby town of Hawthorn Hill , where he set up his own workshop again towards the end of the war. Paul Emery had also given up his job at Alta and, after a few other company changes, now ran his own repair shop in the London borough of Twickenham , where he also serviced customers' racing cars and prepared them for use.

Emeryson Rapier 1100

With the resurgence of motorsport in Great Britain immediately after the war, a class for racing cars up to 1.1 liter displacement had quickly established itself, for which George Emery initially only wanted to build his own car together with his son Peter. As a basis, they used a self-made ladder frame, which they equipped at the front with a modified Singer independent suspension with coil spring and longitudinal steering and at the rear with torsion bar suspension in the style of Alta racing cars. The braking system was taken from a Riley Merlin Nine in a heavily modified form . They used a 1934 Lagonda Rapier engine with a double overhead camshaft, reduced in displacement to 1087 cm³ , to which they fitted a self-assembled two-stage supercharger , consisting of a Marshal compressor and a charger for aircraft cabins from excess RAF stocks.

Although Paul Emery - at least according to his brother's portrayal - was initially not involved in the project, he nonetheless developed a strong interest in it over time. First, he presented a ENV - preselector gearbox available and finally also agreed to prepare a body for which he took the car despite some reservations with his brother to Twickenham. In the meantime Paul had good contacts with some racing drivers whose cars he was preparing for races, and Peter was justified in worrying that Paul would take over the Emeryson Special completely in order to start himself or to use it for other drivers.

For the first race, in 1947 at the second race on English soil after the war on the Gransden Lodge airfield , the body was not yet ready. However, Paul Emery took the chance to put the mostly bare chassis to a first practical test when Eric Winterbottom, a friend of his father, agreed to bear the costs. Winterbottom promptly won the first run of the day, a handicap race, but in the main race for formula-free racing and sports cars that followed, Emery dropped out after just one lap. Shortly afterwards, Winterbottom started again when a race for the Voiturette class - the forerunner of the later Formula 2 - was held on the Isle of Man . In a field of 18 participants, he qualified there for sixth place on the grid and in the end was third despite a small accident at the beginning.

Shortly before, Paul Emery had also met the Northern Irish racing driver Bobbie Baird at a sprint race in Great Auclum . He asked Emery to provide him with the Emeryson Special for the upcoming Voiturette race at the French Grand Prix in Lyon. But already in practice Baird found it difficult and could not achieve a really competitive time and in the race there was an early retirement due to a valve damage despite initially good lap times.

Emeryson-Duesenberg

With the imminent introduction of international Formula 2 in 1948 , in which, contrary to some expectations, the turbocharged 1.1 liter engines were no longer eligible, the question arose of how the Emerys would continue to race. In the late summer of 1947 they had spoken to the press about a completely new design with an air-cooled "flat" 180 ° V12 engine with hydraulically operated valves and "a very special type of supercharging", for which they were looking for a sponsor. Until then, however, they had to look for temporary solutions, with the opinions of the family members again diverging widely. While Peter was of the opinion that the performance of their racing car shown so far was solely due to the engine with its two-stage turbocharging, and despite the displacement disadvantage compared to thoroughbred Grand Prix cars, he still saw development potential in it, Paul was of the opinion that a full-fledged Grand Prix unit would be necessary.

Paul finally resolved the conflict in his own way by unceremoniously brought the car to Baird in Ireland. He already had a suitable engine up his sleeve, a 4.5-liter "Duesenberg" naturally aspirated engine , which Emery first had to extend the chassis by welding additional pipes. Despite the designation as " Duesenberg " it was actually an engine originally designed by the American Fred Clemons for Indianapolis races, which was acquired by Scuderia Ferrari in 1933 and later used by Whitney Straight in his " Brooklands Special" . By increasing the compression and using eight Amal carburetors, Paul Emery was able to increase the output of this unit to allegedly 400 HP (bhp), which would have been an absolute top value among the Formula 1 cars of the time. While this may have been an exaggeration, the engine had more power than the ENV transmission could handle. In the spring of 1948, neither Baird saw the checkered flag in the race on the Channel Island of Jersey, nor did Emery in his first Formula 1 race on the Isle of Man. Emery then pulled the car back to install a more powerful gearbox, but when Baird returned to the racetrack in Albi , France in August , this time due to an ignition failure, Baird only got two laps and the car fell at the British Grand Prix even by the car acceptance. Baird quickly put the Emeryson-Duesenberg aside again to devote himself to a new project with the Baird-Griffin .

Emeryson in Formula 3

In order not to end up without a car, George and Peter Emery devoted themselves to the construction of a racing car for the 500 cm³ formula after Paul left. Unlike most of their competitors, they opted for a car with a front-engined and front-wheel drive , where the chassis should now be the most important factor for success. They obtained the mechanical parts for this from the local junkyard and contrary to what is stated otherwise, according to Peter Emery, the car did not have a disc brake , but instead, for reasons of space, had a single brake drum at the front that acted on the drive wheels via the gearbox. In contrast, George's idea of ​​a rubber band suspension was very innovative, although this was later replaced by conventional coil springs. The main problem, however, was to get a usable engine for this racing car. Finally Paul came to their aid again, who in the meantime had come back from Ireland after the failure with the Emeryson-Duesenberg and provided them with a JAP two-cylinder motorcycle engine. The agreement was that Paul would finish the car in Twickenham - under the supervision of Peter - and thus compete in British Formula 3 as a driver in 1950 . The new Emeryson Formula 3 proved to be competitive right from the start, so that in 1951 Paul Emery commissioned John Rowley in Walsall to produce a small series, some of which were driven quite successfully by their buyers.

Emeryson Formula 2 and Formula 1

As a result, however, another dispute broke out between the brothers who could not agree on basic design issues for the Mk-2 successor model. Paul implemented his own plans again and from then on operated alone again. But although he was able to achieve some decent results with the car, the Norton "Doubleknocker" had now turned out to be a hard-to-beat drive source in Formula 3 and Paul Emery had missed the point when these engines would still have been affordable for him . Without being able to adequately counter the Formula 3 competitor, he therefore took flight forward and decided to move up to Formula 2 in 1953 . At that time, all major races were temporarily held with vehicles of this racing formula.

Emery built a tubular frame chassis, which in principle represented an enlargement of the Formula 3 construction, but with rear-wheel drive, and provided it with independent suspension by means of helical springs and wishbones at the front, while at the rear he built a De-Dion axle with also helical suspension on double trailing arms . In order to position the driver as low as possible in the chassis, he developed a complicated system for power transmission, consisting of a short shaft between the engine and the gearbox and a longer shaft that led from the gearbox to the rear under the rearward-facing differential this was connected there by means of a reduction gear. An Alta four-cylinder served briefly as the drive source. which was soon replaced by an Aston Martin LB6 engine reduced to 2 liters . Emery had bought this from a friend of hiss, a scrap dealer who was regularly supplied with production rejects by Aston Martin. However, the engine quickly proved to be extremely unreliable and, on top of that, simply too slow and most of the time the car, with Emery or Peter Jopp at the wheel, either didn't come off the starting line or failed during practice. The best appearance of the car was made by Lotus company founder Colin Chapman (who contested his only race in a Formula 1 car here) in 1954 at the race for the BRDC International Trophy in Silverstone , where he finished 17th and last in the Emeryson Special far behind to be scored.

Emery soon replaced the engine with another used 2-liter Alta four-cylinder and finally swapped the gearbox, also from Aston Martin, for an ENV preselector gearbox. Since Formula 2 had meanwhile expired and there was now a displacement limit of 2.5 liters in Formula 1, Emery then bored out the cylinders accordingly and thus had a full-fledged Formula 1 vehicle again, which was mainly on narrow and slow could keep up with medium-fast courses. A first success was a second place in the run-up to the race for the London Trophy 1955 in Crystal Palace , where Emery was fifth in the final. In 1956 , Emery was even able to fight for victory with Stirling Moss in his Maserati 250F in the same place, only to finish in an impressive second place. Inspired by this performance, Emery even dared to take part in the subsequent British Grand Prix , his first and only start in a race in the World Automobile Championship , for which he was able to qualify as 23rd of 28 participants, but already in the race had to retire after four laps due to ignition problems.

Despite such achievements, which were quite respectable for a self-build, Emery worked again on a new engine project in 1957 . To do this, he converted a Jaguar XK in-line six-cylinder with a displacement of 2.4 liters to a dry sump and provided it with an injection system that he had again developed himself, which he had derived from a commercially available CAV diesel injection pump. Installed in its now four-year-old special, the car ran in this form only once in a circuit race, in 1958 as part of the Richmond or Glover Trophy in Goodwood , where Emery had to retire after just a few laps with engine failure . Later on, the car achieved some successes in hill climbs, albeit in the women's class, driven by Roberta Cowell , who had been an RAF pilot as a man in the war before her gender reassignment.

Cooper-Connaught and Connaught C-Type

In the meantime, Emery claims to have also built another monoposto with a supercharged 2.5-liter Alta engine and fiberglass body for an American customer who wanted to use it to compete in USAC races. In addition, he also worked on a few other projects, such as B. the installation of a Jaguar engine in an Aston Martin DB3 sports car or a water-cooled flat 180 ° four-cylinder compressor engine of 500 cm³ for Formula 2 for test purposes in a Morris Minor . He entered the 1954 Easter Meeting in Goodwood with the Aston Martin-Jaguar and then sold it to the British RH Dennis, who drove it for several years in races. From mid-1958 Emery finally appeared at the wheel of a Connaught Type B a few times , for example at a national British race in Aintree and then even in training for the Monaco Grand Prix , for which he was unable to qualify. His car had been registered for both events by none other than Bernie Ecclestone , who had acquired two racing cars from the remaining inventory of the Connaught team, which had ceased racing in 1957 for lack of financial means.

The connection to Connaught would also determine Emery's future career for the next few years. Initially in the form of a cooperation with Geoff Richardson , who could also look back on a number of races with self-made racing cars. Together they took over a used Cooper chassis that was last fitted with a BRM engine by Rob Walker for Stirling Moss. Emery now installed an Alta engine in it, which had previously performed its service in a heavily modified form in a Connaught B-Type. The 5-speed transaxle transmission, which had actually been developed for the no longer completed Connaught D-Type (also referred to as “J5”), also came from former Connaught stocks. This "Cooper-Connaught", as the car was consequently called, also appeared mostly at mountain or sprint races with Roberta Cowell at the wheel. However, Emery started at the International Gold Cup in Oulton Park , where he was far from competitive and in the end was lapped too often to be classified.

In the meantime, however, Emery was already working on a new project. Connaught Engineering was recently working on a successor model for the B-Type with a lattice tube frame, De-Dion axle and internal brakes. Emery also took over the half-finished chassis of this C-Type and completed it with parts of a B-Type. And this car, too, should only make one single start in Formula 1, when the American Bob Said in his home race, the US Grand Prix in Sebring , with the car, which is now outdated with its front engine, was already on the first lap after one Dreher retired.

Emeryson 750 and 250

Peter Emery hadn't pursued any major racing car manufacturing ambitions for a long time, but was still not completely inactive. He had built a small sports car from parts of an Austin Seven , with which he did very well at smaller events of the 750 Motor Club . When the club announced a new category of small monoposto racing cars with 250 cc displacement for 1959, Peter remembered his Formula 3 design, which had led to the last dispute with his brother in 1952. In contrast to Paul, he was of the opinion at the time that a combination of front-wheel drive and swing axle at the rear would be the optimal solution for such weakly motorized racing cars, and now, given the low costs, he saw an opportunity to prove this on the real object. With a Velocette MOV engine of around 30 hp and a tubular space frame made of very thin-walled tubes, the entire car weighed just under 150 kg, which corresponds to an excellent power-to-weight ratio of around 5 kg / hp. But a week before the planned first start at Brands Hatch, Peter Emery badly damaged the car when he drove test drives against a lamppost. In order to still get the car fit for the race, he had no choice but to turn to his brother for help. However, the condition was that he was allowed to drive the car in the race himself. Unchallenged in the lead, however, part of the rear suspension broke and although Paul was able to hold the strut together with his hand, he was taken out of the race by the organizer.

Despite this mishap, it was an excellent car that Peter Emery so dominated its class in 1959 and 1960 that it was ultimately discontinued for lack of competition. In addition, it was absolutely competitive even against 500 cc racing cars, so that Paul, contrary to his earlier reservations, was ultimately convinced of the concept. When the American Robert Danken turned to him about a racing car for the 500 cm³ class that still existed in America, Paul suggested instead that he build a racing car for the new Formula Junior based on Peter's design.

Emeryson Experimental Ltd. and Emeryson Elfin Formula Junior

To implement this project, the two brothers founded the company Emeryson Experimentals Ltd., because their plan also included the other marketing of components that they developed for Formula Junior. Peter had previously started to produce brake drums made of lightweight bimetal, which he supplied to companies such as Lola and Lotus under the brand name ELFIN .

For the Formula Junior car, known as the Elfin Mk 1 for this reason, Peter Emery only had to make minor changes to the chassis construction in order to accommodate the originally planned Ford 105E four-cylinder, but Danken ultimately decided on a BMC unit to accommodate the To be able to compete in a class under 1000 cm³. After the car was delivered to America, Peter Emery immediately set about designing another car, known as the Elfin Mk 2.

At this time, further promising prospects opened up for Paul Emery. The longtime Cooper-driver Alan Brown had the Connaught plants in Send in the county of Surrey adopted and with his support and that of his partner Dick Clayton and Cecil Libouity Paul Emery, the company Emeryson founded Ltd., to meet with the construction of a small series from racing cars to start. To address the largest possible customer base, the cars were designed so that they, equipped with different engine and transmission combinations, both in force from 1961 Formula 1 with 1.5 liter displacement limit, and in the increasingly popular Formula Junior are used could.

Emeryson Experimental Ltd., headed by Peter Emery. was involved with the design of the tubular space frame for these vehicles and the development of the racing engine intended for Formula Junior based on the Ford 105E. According to Peter Emerys, however, during a visit to Send, he discovered that his brother had deviated significantly from its design during the manufacture of the frame, which made all carefully made calculations unnecessary. This led to another dispute and Peter immediately decided to get out of chassis development for the cars and only work on the engine project because one of the two units should also be used in his own Elfin Mk 2 Formula Junior.

However, due to the escalating conflict with his brother, Peter was only able to contest a few races with it. According to his account, the agreed payments to Emeryson Experimentals were not made and because Emery Cars even took part of its production machines for itself, he also had to stop his brake drum production. When Peter then refused to hand over the Formula Junior engine, it was said to have been stolen from his garage. Peter Emery had to close the company Emeryson Experimentals and from then on worked as a development engineer for Ford .

Emeryson Cars Ltd.

In contrast to Peter Emerys Elfin with front-wheel drive, Paul's Emeryson racing cars from Send were mid-engine designs with rear-wheel drive. The front suspension consisted of triangular wishbones with coil suspension, while the rear was the Chapman Strut, based on the model of the Lotus 18 , in which the drive shaft took over the function of the upper wishbone. For use in Formula 1, the installation of Coventry Climax FPF four-cylinder carburettor engines with a displacement of 1.5 l and five-speed transmissions from Colotti in the remarkably low car with their smooth fiberglass bodies was also planned. In addition, stronger tubes were used for the chassis of the Formula 1 cars, otherwise the constructions were practically identical. The racing car manufacturer Lister was commissioned to manufacture the frames .

The first prototype was finished in 1960 when the 1.5-liter engines were still being used in Formula 2. The experienced Briton Ron Flockhart started at Brands Hatch in August , but had to give up early due to a broken oil pipe. In October the car reappeared, now with the still largely unknown driver John Turner at the wheel, at the Coupe de Salon on the French circuit of Montlhery. According to legend, Turner is said to have shown such an impressive catch-up race after a spin that the team boss of the Ecurie Nationale Belge ("ENB" for short), Jacques Swaters , immediately placed an order with Emery for 1961. What Swaters should not have noticed, however, was the fact that Turner is said to have regularly missed a chicane in the back of the route. However, based on the course of the race, this version cannot be fully understood without contradictions. Turner was disqualified in the 39th lap for missing the chicane and was therefore withdrawn from the race by the organizers, which can hardly have escaped the experienced Grand Prix driver Swaters. After all, Turner apparently impressed the local experts very much with the third-best training time (out of a total of nine participants) and with his performance in the race, where he was surprisingly able to keep up with the leaders on a very wet track until his spin, so that it was definitely could have been a motive for Swaters' decision. This could also be confirmed by the fact that a few days later at a race at Brands Hatch, John Surtees , a reigning motorcycle world champion and newly crowned Formula 1 driver, tried the Emeryson in training for Lotus . In the race, then George Wicken finished a respectable fifth place, still in the same lap as the winning Lotus 18 from Tony Marsh .

Ecurie Nationale Belge

Unlike the Emeryson prototype, ENB had the three chassis that were ordered equipped with four-cylinder Maserati engines and two of them were ready in time for the Pau Grand Prix at the beginning of the 1961 Formula 1 season . In practice, Lucien Bianchi and Olivier Gendebien qualified alongside Lotus works driver Trevor Taylor in midfield and Bianchi in particular kept up quite well in the race, but then both ENB cars had serious accidents. In addition, the team had already damaged one of the cars while it was being unloaded from the van. One week later, for its first home race in Brussels , where they naturally wanted to compete in full strength, ENB had to borrow last year's prototype with the Climax engine from Emery for the third driver, Willy Mairesse . But neither he nor Gendebien and Bianchi with the two regular cars of the team made it past the back of the starting positions in training and Bianchi's fourth place in the final classification was largely due to the fact that he had crossed the finish line in all three races of the race . Mairesse, on the other hand, was far behind every time, while Gendebien was again eliminated with an accident.

Despite the difficulties, the team even split up afterwards. While Gendebien and Mairesse were already on their way to the race in Syracuse , Bianchi and André Pilette competed in the factory prototype for the race in Aintree. Both were again too slow for the entire event, however, and Pilette only barely made it into the ranking in 16th, while Bianchi had another accident on the first lap. And also in Syracuse, where Formula 1 debutant Giancarlo Baghetti impressively demonstrated the superiority of the new Ferrari 156 “Sharknose”, which was driven here for the first time , to the assembled world elite, the other two ENB drivers couldn't get beyond the role of extras.

And also in the Monaco Grand Prix , the first World Cup race of the season, the situation worsened further, could not even as Bianchi and Gendebien her two Emeryson-Maseratis qualify for the race, while Pilette on the same day at a race in Naples with the Climax-powered car suffered the same fate. At the Belgian Grand Prix , the disappointment finally culminated in the fact that both ENB cars failed in practice when they appeared in front of a home crowd and Mairesse and Bianchi, who were registered by the organizer as locals, each got a Lotus 18 for the race had to borrow from the two drivers who failed in the qualification, Tony Marsh and Wolfgang Seidel . Gendebien, on the other hand, had more luck, who even got one of the factory cars available from Ferrari and in the end made the fourfold Ferrari success with his fourth place.

The team could hardly have been shown more clearly how far the Emeryson constructions were from the international top and ENB immediately withdrew all reports that had already been submitted about the important races of the season. Lucien Bianchi's brother Mauro only tried once again to qualify an Emeryson Maserati for a race, but at the race in Modena only 14 starting places were available for the 27 participants, so this attempt was practically hopeless. And also Pilette with his Emeryson-Climax prototype could not qualify for the Italian Grand Prix - as the only one among 33 participants and 25 seconds behind the fastest in training. Only in the airfield race in Zeltweg , Austria , was he able to bring the car back to the finish as the slowest in training and in the race, far behind, in ninth place.

In spite of everything, the ENB team still did not give up the cars completely, but instead put together a new one for the 1962 season from the parts of the three cars that had already suffered considerably in the numerous accidents . Technically hardly changed compared to the Emeryson construction, but with a new, optically based on the "Sharknose" Ferrari from 1961, but much less elegant body, the car was now referred to as the ENB-Maserati . Amazingly, Lucien Bianchi was able to qualify for all three races he had competed in, including the German Grand Prix and a world championship run in which he was ranked 16th and last. There, too, he had been almost two minutes slower than the fastest in practice, but the qualifying rules were rather opaque and consisted in large part of completing five laps in practice.

Hugh Powell

In the meantime, the 1961 season for Emeryson Cars had continued even after the end of business relations with ENB. After the young up-and-coming driver Mike Spence had already achieved the first and only victory for the Emeryson brand in this class in a major Formula Junior race in Silverstone - incidentally, allegedly with the Emeryson experimental that was illegally removed from Peter Emery's garage. Engine, it was also allowed to compete in a Formula 1 race for the first time at the Solitude Grand Prix . For this race Emery even had a new car called the Mark 2 ready, which was now powered by a Climax FPF engine. However, there is no information on the extent to which it was constructively different from its predecessor. Spence, who had been in the lower midfield on the Solitudering until his retirement, set another highlight at the end of the season with a second place in a race at Brands Hatch, even if none of the works teams had started here. And Emery was even able to celebrate another success this season, because the Scot Ray Fielding was able to win the British hill climb championship in this vehicle category with a specially built sports car version based on the current Formula 1 model.

Nevertheless, the financial situation of Emeryson Cars remained very critical after the break with ENB and Emery finally had to accept an offer from the not yet twenty year old American millionaire son Hugh Powell at the end of 1961. Powell's close friend, Tony Settember ( who is at least 35 years old) (who is sometimes referred to as his guardian), was dreaming of a career as a Formula 1 racing driver at the time, and Powell saw a good opportunity in taking over the company shares in Emeryson Cars to enable him to do this. For this he agreed to finance the use of a two-car team for Settember and the British John Campbell-Jones for 1962 .

Although Alan Brown and the other board members immediately left the company, and even though Powell refused to finance another extremely revolutionary design idea in the form of an all-wheel drive Formula 1 car with a 750 cc motorcycle engine on each axle, it stayed Emery remains loyal to his company as a designer. Instead, he implemented the much more conventional Mk 3 model - albeit apparently only in one copy - for which he had originally planned a monocoque construction made of fiberglass. In the end, however, he was satisfied with a semi-monocoque in which the side tanks were taken up by a self-supporting middle section. The front of the vehicle with the horizontally positioned radiator through which the air flow was guided from below was also unusual. Overall, the Mk 3 was smaller and lighter, and a significant step up from the earlier models, but without one of the new Coventry Climax or BRM V8s, the team was at a disadvantage over the competition from the start. In addition, the chassis was - certainly not to the delight of the team owner - too small for the tall Settember, which may have been the reason that he started almost the entire season with one of the previous year's cars. Conversely, Campbell-Jones, who is said to have been the clearly better driver in the team, felt unfairly disadvantaged by what he believed to be the preferred treatment of Settembers. The tension eventually led to the formation of two camps, with Powell and Settember on one side while the British teamed up with Campbell-Jones.

At the first start in Brussels, the team showed up with only one car for Campbell-Jones, although it is said to have been one of the cars from the previous year. Although some of the competitors already had the new V8 engines, the Briton did respectably and the mere fact that he was only able to intervene after 10 laps in the third and last run of the day prevented an even better result than his fifth place in the final bill. At Goodwood, the team appeared in full strength for the first time. Campbell-Jones in the Mk 3 already had an engine failure right at the start of the first run, but this time Settember - in the previous year's car - showed a decent performance, was even in third place until his retirement and was then in the main race, for which he stood had qualified before Campbell-Jones, after all, eighth. In Aintree, on the other hand, Campbell-Jones was clearly faster and ended up sixth, two places ahead of Settember, and at Silverstone his American team-mate was clearly in his shadow again. Campbell-Jones showed an excellent race here from tenth on the grid, in which he was able to stay in the field of eight-cylinder cars for a long time until he then dropped back to eleventh place with problems.

The Brit found it all the more annoying that the team came to the race in Naples with only one racing car for Settember, who was number 1 in the team, because Campbell-Jones' Mk 3 had been loaned to Wolfgang Seidel to participate in the Dutch Grand Prix . Both Seidel and Settember did not get beyond positions at the end of the field in their respective races and in the end were lagging behind by many laps. Campbell-Jones got his car back for the next race at Crystal Palace, but his trust in the team was already so shaken that he even suspected that the problems with the fuel supply that led to his failure were sabotaged by the team. Settember, on the other hand, was able to take fourth place in this race, which was not very well attended. Now came the Belgian Grand Prix and for the first time this season Emeryson was able to compete in a world championship run. But Campbell-Jones' transmission broke during training, so that he had to change to Günter Seifert's Lotus 18 . However, this car was also so poorly prepared that Campbell-Jones had just covered half the distance by the end of the race.

At the Solitude Grand Prix, for which the team was again allowed to compete with two cars, a way had been found how Settember could still squeeze into the cockpit of the Mk 3, which was actually too narrow for him: his mechanics should quickly pick up a saw have to solve the problem. In the race, his car retired due to an oil leak. For Campbell-Jones, who already had a contract with the Bowmaker team for 1962 , the event went even worse. The team had to borrow one of the previous year's models for him, which was otherwise used by the British privateer Gerry Ashmore . So he had a serious accident during training, in which the car burned out completely and the driver also suffered several burns. As a result, Emeryson was only represented with one car from the British Grand Prix and Settember drove here with his model from last year in the race slowly but steadily and without a pit stop to a solid eleventh place. Six weeks later, at the autumn race in Oulton Park, Settember reappeared, but had to skip the start for unknown reasons, and after that there was only one appearance by the Emeryson team at the Italian Grand Prix , where Settember was the last to qualify was able to then retire in the first quarter of the race with a burned-out cylinder head gasket, also lying at the end of the field.

In the meantime, the conflicts in the team had come to a point that Emery, Campbell-Jones, and with them the British camp, left before the end of the season, while Settember and Powell decided to go on under their own in 1963. Her team, which now competed under the name Scirocco-Powell and in blue and white American racing colors, had its new home in a shed behind a London pub. Hugh Aiden-Jones , who was hired as a designer , continued to use Emery's basic design for the construction of the new racing cars, for which BRM V8 engines were finally available, with only minor modifications, such as reinforcements around the cockpit, and the use of upper struts on the rear suspension and of course the adjustments to the frame behind the cockpit necessary for the installation of the new engines. But even the new, quite pleasing body could not hide the fact that the cars were just as un competitive as the Emeryson Mk 2, which the team had to bring to the start again at the beginning of the season for the race in Pau because of the first Scirocco was finished very late in the season. Settember, who had properly qualified for a position in midfield, had an accident after just three laps on this last appearance of an Emeryson in a Formula 1 race.

Paul Emery Cars and Shannon-Climax

Paul Emery turned to other activities after the end of Emeryson Cars in Fulham . With his newly founded company Paul Emery Cars , he specialized in tuning Hillman Imp touring cars. At the London Racing Car Show in 1964 he presented a two-seater coupe, also based on the Imp, which he produced in small numbers under the name Emery GT . A planned series production did not materialize, however, because the investor for this project is said to have died shortly before the contract was signed. Two of the cars were used in the 500 km races at the Nürburgring in 1964 and 1966 . At the same time Emery presented the fiberglass Coupe Dart , which was built on the chassis of a Morris Mini station wagon and which eventually became the model for the Mini-Marcos . Another of his projects was a twin-engine mini for touring car races with Campbell-Jones as a driver, but eventually he turned back to Formula 1.

In 1966 he enlarged one of the Coventry Climax FPE “Godiva” V8 engines , originally developed for the 2.5-liter formula from 1954 and therefore already 12 years old, to 3 l displacement, which was originally developed for operation with alcohol was used in a chassis built by Aiden-Jones - his successor in the Scirocco team. With this as Shannon SH-1 car designated launched Trevor Taylor in 1966 at the British Grand Prix , but was eliminated with a ruptured gas tank in the first round. Afterwards, Emery and Aiden-Jones parted ways again, but Emery's engine ran again at a race in Oulton Park, built into a 1964 BRP chassis of the Willment team and with Campbell-Jones at the wheel. However, the car was taken out of the race by the organizer because it had spread too much oil on the track.

Emery also propagated another of his ideas, a sports car team with Formula 2 engines from Honda, or a four-wheel drive Formula 1, which is powered by a "flat" 180 ° two-stroke eight-cylinder made up of two Hillman Imp engines Turbocharger should be powered - eleven years before Renault really brought this technology to Formula 1. As usual, he did not get any sponsors for such unusual ideas, but in the end Emery found niches in which he could operate successfully. After preparing Hillman Imps for touring car races for a while - including a 1,100 cc version with a turbocharger for rallycross use - he finally built a number of midget cars for stadium races, which he also competed in himself and - already over 50 years old - won the British championship title five years in a row.

literature

  • John Bolster: Specials , GT Foulis & Co. Ltd., Strand 1949 (English)
  • Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing. Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9
  • David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars. Crowood Press, Marlborough 2001, ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English).
  • David Hodges: Racing cars from AZ after 1945. Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
  • Mike Lawrence: Grand Prix Cars 1945-1965 , Motor Racing Publications 1998, ISBN 1-899870-39-3 (English)
  • Doug Nye: Autocourse History of the Grand Prix Car 1945 - 1965 , Hazleton Publishing, Richmond 1993, ISBN 1-874557-50-0 (English)
  • Doug Nye: The Big Book of Formula 1 Racing Cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Publishing house Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X .
  • Paul Sheldon with Duncan Rabagliati: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Volume 4, 1937–1949 , St. Leonard's Press, Bradford 1993, ISBN 0-9512433-8-1 (English)
  • Paul Sheldon with Duncan Rabagliati: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Volume 5, 1950–1953 , St. Leonard's Press, Bradford 1988/1989, ISBN 0-9512433-2-2 (English)
  • Paul Sheldon with Duncan Rabagliati: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Volume 6, 1954–1959 , St. Leonard's Press, Bradford 1987, ISBN 0-9512433-1-4 (English)
  • Paul Sheldon with Duncan Rabagliati: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Volume 7, 1960–1964 , St. Leonard's Press, Bradford 1991, ISBN 0-9512433-6-5 (English)
  • Paul Sheldon with Duncan Rabagliati: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Volume 8, 1965–1969 , St. Leonard's Press, Bradford 1994, ISBN 0-9512433-6-5 (English)
  • Mark Whitelock: 1½-liter Grand Prix Racing 1961-65 , Veloce Publishing, Dorchester 2006, ISBN 1-84584-016-X (English)

Web links

Commons : Emeryson Race Car  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Emeryson Wagon  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Personal memories of Peter Emerys at www.hrscc.co.nz (accessed November 25, 2017)
  2. ↑ Race report from the Gransden Meeting 1947 in Motorsport Magazine from August 1, 1947 at www.motorsportmagazine.com (accessed November 25, 2017)
  3. ↑ Report on the Emeryson Special in Motorsport Magazine from September 18, 1947 at www.motorsportmagazine.com (accessed November 25, 2017)
  4. ^ Memories of Peter Emery at www.hrscc.co.nz (accessed November 25, 2017)
  5. ↑ memories Peter Emery on www.hrscc.co.nz (accessed on 25 November 2017)
  6. ^ Paul Sheldon with Duncan Rabagliati: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Volume 7, 1960 - 1964 , St. Leonard's Press, Bradford 1991, ISBN 0-9512433-6-5 , p. 63
  7. ↑ memories Peter Emery on www.hrscc.co.nz (accessed on 25 November 2017)
  8. ↑ Paul Sheldon with Duncan Rabagliati: A Record of Grand Prix and Voiturette Racing, Volume 7, 1960-1964 , St. Leonard's Press, Bradford 1991, ISBN 0-9512433-6-5 , p. 137
  9. ^ Roger Gloor: Passenger Cars of the 60s , Bendikt Taschen Verlag, Cologne 1994, p. 392