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[edit] Tony Southgate

Tony Southgate (b. 25 May 1940, Coventry, England) is a British retired engineer and racing car designer. During his career he penned many successful cars, including Jaguar's Le Mans-winning XJR-9, and designed cars almost every type of circuit racing, as well as being responsible for the chassis design for Ford's RS200 Group B rally car. During over twenty years in Formula One Southgate was employed, as chief designer or technical director, by many teams, including BRM, Shadow and Arrows. After once again producing a Le Mans-winning car, in the Audi R8C which evolved into the Bentley Speed 8, Southgate decided to retire. He continues to be a regular visitor to many current and historic race meetings.

[edit] Early career at Lola and Eagle

Tony Southgate became interested in motorsport during his engineering apprenticeship and, like many aspiring racing designers in the late 1950s, was a member of the 750 Motor Club. The 750MC had been training ground to such motorsport luminaries as Colin Chapman, Eric Broadley and Brian Hart, and its was Broadley who gave Southgate his first job, as a draughtsman for Lola Cars in 1962. At Lola Southgate gained a broad training in many areas of motorsport design. He was involved in projects as wide-ranging as the lithe, 1.5 litre Lola Mk4A Formula One car, and the 5.0 litre Lola T70 sports car. He also assisted with designs for IndyCar chassis, one of which evolved into the Honda RA300 Hondola Formula One race-winner.

It was his exeprience with single-seater and IndyCar designs which prompted Dan Gurney to hire Southgate for his All-American Racers team, based in California, to design some of the second generation of Gurney-Eagle USAC racers. The highlight of Southgate's time with AAR was when Bobby Unser won the 1968 Indianapolis 500 race in one of Southgate's Eagle cars. The Southgate-designed Eagle Formula 5000 car also found some success.

[edit] Promotion with BRM

However, in 1969 Tony Southgate decided to move back to the UK and took a job as Chief Designer for the BRM Formula One team. Southgate's first BRM car, the BRM P153, appeared in time for the first race of the 1970 season in South Africa. With the P153 and its successor the BRM P160 BRM enjoyed something of a renaissance. The P160, in particular, was competitive with the best during the 1971 season; drivers Pedro Rodríguez and Jo Siffert often ran near the front of the field, only for poor reliability to let them down before the finish. Continued development work reaped vast improvements, though. In the latter half of the season Siffert and Peter Gethin (who had replaced Rodríguez following the latter's death) won back-to-back victories in the Austrian and Italian Grands Prix. Gethin's victory at Monza was taken at an average speed of over 150 mph (240 kph) and stood as the fastest ever Grand Prix win for over 30 years.

Although the BRM team finished second in the Constructors' Championship standings the end of the season, the achievement was marred by Siffert's death in a non-Championship race at Brands Hatch. Unfortunately for BRM and Tony Southgate his 1972 design, the BRM P180, was not as competitive as the previous model. Siffert's replacement Jean-Pierre Beltoise managed to win a rain-hit Monaco Grand Prix, and with it take BRM's final Formula One victory, in the older P160, but the writing was on the wall and part-way through the season BRM and Tony Southgate parted company. At the end of the season the BRM team found itself in seventh in the championship.

[edit] CanAm and Formula One with Shadow

Having maintained his contacts in the United States, Shadow Racing Cars founder Don Nichols approached Southgate to design a Formula One car for his team. Shadow had already been involved in the CanAm sportscar series for nearly two years, but with UOP sponsorship Nichols was planning an entrance into the top open-wheel formula. Southgate designed and built the first Shadow Formula One prototype, the Shadow DN1, in his own garage in Lincolnshire, where he had moved to be closer to the BRM factory in Bourne. However, production was soon shifted to the USA, to where Southgate once again relocated.

The DN1 was a

[edit] Arrows

[edit] TWR and the Jaguar cars

[edit] References

• People: Tony Southgate. GrandPrix.com. Retrieved on 2007-09-11.

[edit] BRM P25

BRM P25

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Category	Formula One
Constructor	British Racing Motors
Designer(s)	Peter Berthon Stuart Tresilian
Technical Specifications
Chassis	Steel spaceframe.
Suspension (front)	Double wishbone, with outboard coilover spring/damper units.
Suspension (rear)	de Dion tube, with Watt's linkage and double radius rods. Coilover spring/damper units.
Track-width	F: 51 in (1300 mm) R: 50 in (1270 mm)
Wheelbase	90 in (2290 mm)
Engine	BRM P25 2491 cc (152 cu in) DOHC straight-4. Naturally aspirated, front-mounted.
Transmission	BRM 4-speed manual transaxle, with integral ZF differential.
Weight	690 kg (1521 lb)
Tyres	Dunlop
Competition History
Notable entrants	Owen Racing Organisation British Racing Partnership
Notable drivers	Mike Hawthorn Jo Bonnier Stirling Moss Ron Flockhart Harry Schell Jean Behra
Debut	1956 Monaco Grand Prix
Races   Wins    Poles     FLs    22 1 1 2
n.b. Unless otherwise stated, all data refer to Formula One World Championship Grands Prix only.

The BRM P25 is a Formula One racing car that was built by the British Racing Motors team, and introduced during the 1955 Formula One season. The car was BRM's first Formula One machine since the aborted, V16-engined P15 of 1951, and was in many aspects a significantly more conservative design. The car was powered by a 2.5-litre straight-4 engine, designed and built in-house, that was housed in a spaceframe chassis. The BRM P25 made its World Championship debut at the 1956 Monaco Grand Prix but it was not until over three years later, at the 1959 Dutch Grand Prix, that it took BRM's first — and its one and only — Grand Prix victory, driven by Swede Jo Bonnier. During the interveing period much development work had taken place on both the chassis and mechanical components of the car, but despite these improvement by the late 1950s the mid-engine revolution was starting to gather pace, and the BRM was becoming outclassed. At the end of the 1959 season all but one of the cars built were broken up and their parts used to contruct the P25's successor, the mid-engined P48.

[edit] Design

Since the flop of the disastous V16 cars, the original British Racing Motors Trust had been wound up. The BRM company was subsequently bought outright by the Rubery Owen engineering conglomerate, whose managing director was Sir Alfred Owen, one of the BRM Trust's original backers. Owen created a subsidiary company, the Owen Racing Organisation, to oversee the BRM project. Despite the change in ownership the BRM team decided to continue with its original aim: to produce an all-British Formula One winner.^[1]

[edit] Engine

Improvements made to the V16's design allowed the Mark II car (officially, the BRM P30) to win in limited-distance Formula Libre races in 1953, but by that time the Formula One regulations had been changed and so its 1.5-litre supercharged engine was no longer eligible for World Championship Grands Prix. That 2-litre formula lasted until the start of the 1954 Formula One season, when it was in turn replaced by regulations allowing naturally-aspirated engines of up to 2.5 litres, or 750 cc supercharged engines.

Rather than repeat the complexity of the 16-cylinder cars, consultant engine designer Stuart Tresilian began work on a far simpler straight-4 motor. This engine would have to last for a full 500km Grand Prix distance, something which the V16 had singularly failed to do. Tresilian chose an oversquare design, with bore and stroke dimensions of 102.87 mm (4.05 in) and 74.93 mm (2.95 in), respectively, giving a total engine capacity of 2491 cc (152 cu in).^[2] The wide bore was chosen to allow for large valves, which were mounted at 90° to one another within a hemispherical combustion chamber head.

[edit] Chassis

[edit] Suspension

[edit] Anciallary components

[edit] Competition history

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Collet, R. 1956. Prototype Parade No. 78: BRM. Model Maker, 6 (December 1956), 635-637
• Jenkinson, D.S. 1957. The 43rd Grand Prix de l'A.C.F.. Motor Sport, XXXIII/8 (August 1957), 460-462
• Jenkinson, D.S. 1958a. XVI Grand Prix de Monaco: Notes on the cars at Monte Carlo. Motor Sport, XXXIV/6 (June 1958), 342-343
• Jenkinson, D.S. 1958b. The 44th Grand Prix de l'ACF: Brief notes on the cars at Reims. Motor Sport, XXXIV/8 (August 1958), 553
• Laidlaw-Dickson, D.J. 1959. Prototype Parade No. 96: BRM 1958/9. Model Maker, 9 (September 1959), 405-407
• Muelas, F., Snellman, L. & Diepraam, M. 1999. Bonnier takes BRM by the horns. 8W, October 1999
• Proud, J.R. 1970. Prototype Parade No. 310: The Pale Green BRM. Model Cars, 7/6 (June 1970), 294-295
• Car Model: BRM P25. ChicaneF1.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-01. (World Championship statistics.)

[edit] Footnotes

v • d • e British Racing Motors Founder: Raymond Mays Principals: Alfred Owen • Louis Stanley • Jean Stanley Designers: Peter Berthon • Aubrey Woods • Tony Rudd • Len Terry • Tony Southgate • Mike Pilbeam Cars Formula One: 15 • P30 • P25 • P48 • P57 • P578 • P61 • P261 • P67 • P83 • P115 • P126 • P133 • P138 • P139 • P153 • P160 • P180 • P201 • P207 • P230 Sportscars: Rover-BRM • P154 • P167 • P351 • P301

[edit] Frank Gardner

Frank Gardner
Nationality  Australian
Formula One World Championship career
Active years	1964 - 1965, 1968
Teams	Brabham, BRM
Races	9 (8 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	0
Career points	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First race	1964 British Grand Prix
Last race	1968 Italian Grand Prix

Frank Gardner (born October 1, 1931)^[1] is a former racing driver from Australia. He is best known as a Formula 5000, touring car and sports car racing driver. He participated in nine World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on July 11, 1964, but scored no championship points. He also participated in numerous non-Championship Formula One races. Gardner won the 1971 and 1972 British Formula 5000 championships, the British Touring Car Championship title on three occasions (1967, 1968 and 1973) the first two in a Ford and the last in a Chevrolet. After returning to Australia in the mid-1970s Gardner won the 1977 Australian Sports Sedan Championship driving a highly modified Chevrolet Corvair. Before taking up motor racing he had been a boxer and surf lifesaver.

Gardner at 1969 1000km Nürburgring with Porsche 917

[edit] Early life

Frank Gardner was born in Sydney, New South Wales, in 1931, the son of a fisherman. When Gardner was only 12 years old his father was hit and killed by a car while returning home from work one night. As a result, the young Frank Gardner went to live with his uncle Hope Bartlett, who had been a frequent competitor in Australian motor sport events throughout the 1930s. However, as a young man Gardner's interests were by no means restricted to the track. His sporting involvement included surfing, swimming, diving, rowing, sailing and boxing, as well as motorcycle speedway racing. After serving as an apprentice mechanic at his uncle's bus company, Frank Gardner decided to open his own garage. In order to raise the starting funds for the business Gardner fell back on his amateur boxing experience and turned professional. With the money raised through boxing Frank Gardner bought the Whale Beach Service Station in Avalon, some 35 km north of Sidney.

[edit] Motor racing beginnings

[edit] Racing rebuilt Jaguars in Australia

At only 17 years of age Gardner borrowed an old MG TA from Bartlett and entered it for his first car race, at the local Marston Park airfield, which he won. A few years later, in 1953, Gardner bought Bartlett's race-winning Jaguar XK120 and after replacing the metal bodywork with fibreglass to reduce weight he used it to win many races over the following few years. Gardner's next car was another Jaguar: the ex-works C-Type XKC 037,^[1] that he bought as a write-off from the previous owner's insurance company. Jaguar supplied sufficient plans and drawings, and with his mechanical expertise Gardner was able to fully rebuild XKC 037. While he was reconstructing its chassis Gardner transferred the C-Type's engine and steering into the XK120, and on its completion the car was built up with a combination of C-Type and XK120 parts.^[2] Gardner's next step up the racing ladder was provided in 1957 when he bought another crashed Jaguar: D-Type XKD520. Between the three Jaguars Frank Gardner scored 25 wins from 26 starts in sports car classes, and took the New South Wales sportscar championship in both 1956 and 1957.

[edit] Move to the United Kingdom

In 1958 Frank Gardner decided to move to England to "see what it was all about over there".^[1] He sold the Jaguars and a five-year lease on the Whale Beach Service Station to fund his trip. On arrival he managed to find work as a mechanic in Aston Martin's racing department, working under Reg Parnell and John Wyer. Gardner remained with Aston for over a year, tending both the firm's sportscars – including the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning DBR1 – and the DBR4 Formula One cars. Although he was participating in racing at the very highest levels Gardner still maintained an ambition to drive himself, an ambition seriously compromised by lack of funds.^[1]

To get a toe back in the door, in 1961 Gardner took a job with Jim Russell's racing drivers' school at the Snetterton Circuit in Norfolk. Here Gardner was responsible for rebuilding cars that had been damaged by the school's pupils, and as many of them were Lotus 18 and 20 models he learned a significant amount about contemporary, cutting-edge, single-seat racing car design. Importantly for Gardner, once he had mended the cars Russell allowed him to race them, on the assumption that a car that had won a race was subsequently easier to sell.^[1] This season of Formula Junior racing was Gardner's first experience of racing both in Britain, and in a single-seater car. Nevertheless he took six victories, at tracks as diverse as Oulton Park, Silverstone, and the racing school's home circuit Snetterton.

Gardner's relationship with Jim Russell only lasted for one season, as at the end of 1961 Jack Brabham, an old acquaintance from the speedway tracks of Sydney, approached him to join the newly-formed Motor Racing Developments team. Once again Gardner's role was principally that of fabricator and mechanic, but in addition to this he was also the works Brabham Formula Junior driver. Although he failed to win a race Gardner's Brabham BT2 was commonly near the front of the field; he recorded three fastest laps, and took pole position at both Aintree and Silverstone.^[3] During the season Gardner experimented with small aerodynamic deflectors on either side of the BT2's nosecone, five years before Formula One teams started to run similar devices, but confrontations with scrutineers over their legality prompted Gardner to abandon them, rather than face "buggerising about with officialdom".^[1]

[edit] Full-time driving career

[edit] Complete Formula One World Championship results

(key)

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Gardner, F., Bowden, D. & Kohrn, W. 2003. Genuine Trans Am guys speak up: Frank Gardner. www.ponysite.de. Retrieved on April 22, 2008.
• Tayor, S. 2008. Lunch with... Frank Gardner. Motor Sport, 84/3, p. 84-92
• Driver: Gardner, Frank. Autocourse Grand Prix Archive. Retrieved on 2008-04-22.

[edit] Footnotes