2-2-54 BRITAIN'S CHALLENGE IN MOTOR RACING Development Of The BR.M. COLOSSAL COST OF DESIGNING AND PRODUGTION → ISpecially Writter [By IAN M. To arrive at a clear picture of the B.R.M. racing car, it is necessary to go back several years in the history of motor racing. B.R.M. are the initials of British Racing Motors, Ltd. Ken Wharton will drive a B.R.M. in the race at Wigram next Saturday. In 1933, Mr Humphrey Cook, who had competed successfully in both road races and races at Brooklands frack, in various makes of cars, particularly the T.T. and 30/98 Vauxialls, approached Messrs Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon with a view to underwriting the production and running dí a team of racing cars. Raymond Mays had been outstandingly successful in hill-climbing and racing events since World War I, in Hillman, Bugatti, Invicta, and other cars. Starting as an undergraduate at Cambridge, he had turned and developed these cars in conjunction with Amherst Villiers and Peter Berthon. His association with Villiers culminated in the Villiers Supercharge, a 1922 T.T. Vauxhall, fitted with a Villiersdesigned supercharger, and otherwise modified until it gave nearly 300 brake horse-power, as compared with its original 125. With this car, Mays succeeded, in 1933, in breaking the record for Shelsiey Walsh hill. which had been set by the Austrian, Hans von Stuck. in 1930. Before this, Villiers_had given up independent work. and was engaged in the „development of the team, of "blower" Bentleys. raced by Sir Henry Birkin. Mays and Berthon then produced a very special supercharged Riley. in conjunction with the Riley works. This ) car was oi 1½ litres capacity, and was designed to develop 150 b.h.p. It was the success of this car, known as the White Riley because of its colour, that attracted the attention of Humphrey Cook. for "The Press"). BARKERT E.R.A. Car's Successes A company was formed. known as / English Racing Automobiles. Ltd., and the car produced was the E.R.A., un-l questionably the most successiul racing car ever built in Britain to date. The first car appeared in 1934 and washinto many are still in active competition in England today. The engines were a development of the White Riley motor. and chassis were designed with the assistance of Reid Railton. designer of many record-breaking cars, notably the late John Cobb's Railton-Mobil Special. present holder of the world's land speed record. The cars appeared in 1100 c.c., 1500 c.c. and 2000 c.c. form, and were supercharged with Rootstype superchargers designed by Murray Jamieson. replaced on later cars With Zoiler vane-type superchargers giving a much higher boost From 1937 the cars were fitted with independent front-wheel suspension, using a trailing-arm layout similar to that used on the German Auto-Union cars. The actual springing medium! was a pair of torsion bars running! across the chassis. It is interesting to note that a very similar system is used by the well-known Christchurch racing motorist. Mr Hee Green, on his R.A. Vanguard. I'ne cars were never designed for! full-scale Grands PrIX, as it was! realised that on the funds available it was impossible to compete with the Government-sponsored German teams of Mercedes-Benz and Auto- Union. They did, however, make at clean sweep of the voiturette class, corresponding to the Formula 2 class of today. The second world war put a stop to all ideas of racing until 1946, when Raymond Mays succeeded in interesting a large number of firms and organisations in the production of a racing car to uphold Britain in inter-! national competition. After the war, racing was held under two- separate classes, known as Formula 1. 1500 c.c. supercharged or 1 up to 4ž litres unsupercharged; and! Formula 2. 500 c.c. supercharged up to 2 litres unsupercharged. Later, Formula 3 was added for cars up to 500 c.c. unsupercharged. Work Begun on B.R.M. Peter Berthon, drawing on his considerable experience gained with E.R.A. and other cars, _had designed a car to compete under Formula 1, and company. was formed, known as British Racing Motors, Ltd, under the direction of the British Motor Racing Research Trust. Work was started on the B.R.M. in 1916, and the first car was driven on the testing circuit in December. 1949. The B.R.M. has 16 cylinders, in a Vee formation, arranged in two bocks. The arrangement could be likened to two V-8 engines end-to-end, as the drive is taken from gears at the centre of the crankshaft, between the two blocks. The angle of the vee is 135 degrees. The cubic capacity of the. engine is 1488 c.c., each cylinder there-! fore having a capacity of only 93 c.c. Bore and stroke are both less than two inches. the stroke being slightly less than the bore. It is interesting to note that the bore of each cylinder is about the size of a half-crown piece. Iwo overhead camshafts are used to each bank of cylinders, with inclined valves and a hemispherical combustion chamber. This camshaftvalve layout is used on most successful racing cars, and a familiar sports car using a similar design is the XK120 Jaguar. The extremely short stroke design enables very high engine revolutions to be used, without reaching a dangerously high piston speed. The B.R.M. engine develops its full power...at 12,000 revolutions a minute; the average American car is flat out at about 000 г.p.m., giving •some idea of the colossal . stresses in the B.R.M. motor when operating at full power. During the Second World War, Peter Berthon had been working with Rolls-Royce, Ltd., on the production of aero-engines, and had gained much experience in the use of centrifugal superchargers, a fact which is reflected in the supercharger lay-out on the B.R.M. The mixture is supplied to the cylinders by two centrifugal superchargers, one blowing into the other These into give a two-stage boost. struments draw the mixture from two carburettors. and the rotors revolve at considerably more than crankshaft speed. The engine develops considerably more than 400 b.n.p.-in fact, it 15 believed that 500 b.h.p. has been pro-! duced during bench tests. The chassis is built up of steel tubes. independent front suspension being of the same pattern as that used on the! later E.R.A. except that the springing medium has been changed from torsion bars to Lockheed air struts. These look the same as the telescopic shockabsorbers fitted to modern cars, gut. are full of air instead of fluid. Rear suspension is of De Dion pattern. that is, the wheels are joined by a dead axle, the differential unit being rigidly mounted on the chassis. The power is transmitted from the differential to the rear wheels through universal joints, and the axle is located by tubular radius arms, which run forward to pivot on the chassis. Springing is again by air struts. A five-speed gear-box is mounted in unit with the differential, and is controlled by a short remote gear-lever on the driver's right. Three-leadingshoe hydraulic brakes were originally fitted. but these have been replaced by disc brakes. The fuel capacity is 50 gallons, carried in tanks in the tail, and in front of the driver. It has often been stated--incorrectly -that the B.R.M. received financial backing from the British Government. development of the car was raised is not so. The money for from firms and individuals interested| in the production of a successful British car. The B.R.M. Association, with members in "all parts of the Commonwealth, contributed funds which were raised from the pockets of its members. The Government has always hindered rather than helped the racing situation in Britain. Setbacks and Disappointments It must be admitted that though thei B.R.M. is the most technically advanced and the fastest racing car ever built, it is not the most reliable. The B.R.M. organisation suffered innumerable setbacks and disappointments, and the best performances the cars ever put up in a ful Grand Prix was in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1951, when two cars driven by Reg Parnell and Peter Walker finished fifth and seventh. This was the only race in which a B.R.M. finished when op-! posed by the full works teams of Alta- Romeo and Ferrari. Both drivers suffered burnt feet owing to the intense heat generated by the engine, being more than the cockpit ventilation could deal with. After this the cars underwent several design changes. being fitted with dise brakes. and the body style was altered. giving a larger air intake. With the retirement from racing of the Alfa-Romeo team after 1951, all; major races in 1952 and 1953 were run under Formula 2 (for which the B.R.M. is not eligible). From this year on, Formula I becomes 750 c.c. super-. charged. or up to 2} litres unsupercharged. The failure of the cars can be attributed to one major finance. The cost of designing, pro-. ducing, and running such a car absolutely colossal, and although more than £ 200.000 B.R.M.. it should be remembered that the victorious German teams of pre-war days were subsidised to a far greater amount, and that money had a higher purchasing power, and wages: lower. In 1952 the company was put up for sale, and was purchased by Mr A. ' ;B. Owen. head of the Owen organisafirm in this organisation, Rubery. Owen, Ltd., had been responsible for the production of the chassis and other parts of the car. Under Mr Owen. the cars have competed in many reces in England and Scotland, and in the Albi G.P. in France. These races • have been held under Formule Libre, or free-for-all, as was the Ardmore Grand Prix in this country. Several Wins In the hands of the Argentinians. ¡Fangio and Gonzales, and the Englishmen, Reg Parnell and Ken Wharton, they have been very successful, scoring several wins. In the Albi race they were defeated by tyre trouble, after Fangio had set up a new lap record. and Ken Wharton had a shocking crash when a brake locked on at. about 130 m.p.h. The car was a complete write-off. Wharton has, however, been more, consistently successful with the car than any other driver, and spectators at the Ardmore Grand Prix will understand why. In conclusion, while it cannot be denied that the B.R.M. was not a complete success. it should not be forgotten that Raymond Mays. Peter Berthon, and all those connected with the project were the first men ever to make a determined effort io put Great Britain on the map in international Grand Prix racing since the Sunbeam of Sir Henry Segrave won the French Grand Prix in 1923.