John Crosthwaite
Crosthwaite worked with Cooper Cars, Colin Chapman at Team Lotus and Mickey Thompson as well as drivers Graham Hill, Dan Gurney and Jackie Stewart.
On his return to Britain he went to work as an apprentice at Armstrong Siddeley and studied for the National Certificate in Engineering at Coventry Technical College in the evenings.
Any spare time was spent buying, driving and reconditioning neglected cars including a 1937 1100 cc Alta.
Whilst at Cooper's he worked with Ivor Bueb, Roy Salvadori, Ken Tyrrell and Jack Brabham.
Sopwith won races at several circuits, including Goodwood, with the bobtail Cooper Climax and broke the class record at Prescott hill climb.
However at the end of the 1955 season at Oulton Park, Tommy had an accident, rolled his Cooper Climax and was quite badly hurt after he 'overcooked it' on one of the corners.
They married in April 1955 and with a baby on the way he needed to support his family so tried to decide on the best team to join.In autumn 1955 he joined Colin Chapman who was starting Lotus cars.
He also acted as Chapman's senior racing mechanic and they competed all over the UK, as well as Le Mans, Imola and Monza.
He also found a lot of work successfully preparing Coopers and Lotus cars for races in California and Nevada.
The drivers he worked for included John Biehl, Frank Monise, Ignacio Lozano, Jock Ross, Leon Miller, and Skip Conklin.
They started as a partnership, Hull as MD and financier and Crosthwaite to design and build a Formula Junior for their company "Dolphin Engineering".
Dolphin Engineering tooled up with jigs for all the welded parts and Crosthwaite designed cast magnesium wheels for the car.
Unusually they used a stock V8 Buick engine and it was in the rear unlike the front-engined, race tuned, Offenhauser powered cars used by most competitors.
Despite being more than 70 bhp down on the other cars Dan Gurney qualified eighth and was in ninth place until a leaking oil seal seized the gearbox and ended his race on lap 94.
[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] [42][43][44] The sponsors were very pleased with the publicity generated that year so for the 1963 Indianapolis 500 Crosthwaite produced the innovative Harvey Aluminium Special 'roller skate car' with the then pioneering smaller profile (12-inch diameter) and wide racing tyres (front 7 inches and rear 9 inches wide) and wheels.
Formula 1 World Champion Graham Hill test drove one of the cars but decided not to race because commitments in Europe meant he had insufficient time to practice.
[58] While he had been at Holman Moody, Crosthwaite had a phone call from Tony Rudd Chief Engineer at BRM asking him to go to Watkins Glen race track in New York State (the US Grand Prix was held there on 6 October 1963).
In December 1963 Crosthwaite returned to the UK to join British Formula 1 team BRM as chassis designer.
The engine mountings were designed to spread the load over the length of the crankcase to protect the expensive castings in the event of a minor shunt.
In 1964 and 1965 Graham Hill finished second in the Drivers' Championship and BRM were second in the Constructors' Competition both years (five wins and eleven second places).
It was Crosthwaite's idea to surprise Jackie Stewart by making him a tartan driving seat for his BRM P261 at the 1965 Monaco Grand Prix.
[59] [60] [61] Working as a consultant firstly with Jack Griffith, then Frank Reisner in Turin, he designed the chassis for the Robert Cumberford shaped car the Intermeccanica Italia.
Crosthwaite altered and improved the set up and suspension on the Lola T70 of New York-based racing driver John 'Buck' Fulp.
Stirling Moss said of the changes - 'it now qualifies for the classic definition of a grand touring car, one which permits driver and passenger and their luggage to cover long distances on European high speed roads in complete comfort'.
Crosthwaite was asked to install Ford's new V6 in place of the old straight 6-cylinder engine in the SE4a and improve the handling and road holding of the Turkish made Anadol.
When designing the chassis Crosthwaite worked closely with Ogle body stylist Peter Bailey to modify and refine the prototype.
The design was so successful that the basic chassis and suspension geometry remained the same until the last version of the GTE was produced 20 years later.
[106][107][108][109][110] In late 1977, at the end of his three year contract with Hyundai, he returned to England to start his own company, Reef Engineering, to produce and export open top cars for holiday resorts in the Seychelles and the West Indies.
These included the Jimp, a kind of mini Land Rover look alike, and the Salamander, intended as a replacement for the AC Cars invalid carriage.
Active, energetic and enthusiastic, he continued to windsurf and ride mountain bikes 'off-road' until he was 76 years old, when he fractured his hip in a cycling accident on the South Downs.
