Ferguson Research

When Dixon was racing in the Ulster TT, he met Harry Ferguson, who garaged his car for him.

He had also won a substantial lawsuit for patent infringement with the Ford Motor Company in the US and now had money to invest.

To promote the company's technology, Tony Rolt set in motion the development of a Coventry-Climax powered 4WD Formula One car in 1960.

However the car won a non-championship race, the 1961 International Gold Cup at Oulton Park with Stirling Moss as the driver.

As of today, this is the only victory of a four-wheel drive car in F1 (and incidentally the last race won by Moss in Europe), with the technology banned in 1983.

In 1964 the Ferguson P99, by then fitted with a 2.5 litre Climax engine, was lent to Peter Westbury who used it to win the British Hillclimb Championship that year.

In 1969 the company converted a fleet of   Ford Zephyr MkIV police vehicles for assessment by the UK government, with interests in possible military use.

The 1969 British Grand Prix, saw a record number of four 4WD cars entered, with John Miles in a Lotus 63 achieving the best finish of 10th.

Eventually, in 1971, Tony Sheldon decided that too much money had been pumped into research with no real result and closed down Harry Ferguson Research Ltd Tony Rolt was convinced of 4WD's future in road cars and in 1971 formed a new company called FF Developments  to develop Ferguson's four-wheel drive systems.