The legend of merlyn
The people behind these Formula Fords certainly wrought their own magic
The Merlyn sTory is simpler than many. Selwyn Hayward founded Colchester Racing Developments in 1960, initially to build front-engined Formula Junior racing cars, which he also drove. Hayward was joined a few years later by his younger brother Clive and, during the next two decades, the brothers went on to build a whole range of elegant single-seater and sports cars under the Merlyn banner.
‘It was always a labour of love,’ Clive says. ‘Still is. It wouldn’t make a career!’ That said, by 1978-79 more than 600 Merlyns had rolled out from the Colchester factory, of which Clive reckons probably ‘four or five hundred’ were Formula Fords. ‘America was a big market for us; that and the Jim Russell race school.’ The remaining 100 or so catered for the Formula Junior, Formula 3 and Formula 2 single-seater categories, and the then-popular sports racing category in which a Merlyn Mk4 or Mk6 was a direct competitor with the Lotus 23.
‘You couldn’t do it now,’ says Clive. ‘A lot of the best drivers didn’t have any money, but there was a hell of a lot of enthusiasm. Everybody wanted to be involved.’
Formula Ford 1600 is the category with which most associate the Merlyn name and there were some well-known drivers – Chris Irwin, James Hunt, Jody Scheckter, Emerson Fittipaldi, Tony Brise, Tim Schenken and many more – but, as the 1980s dawned, the Haywards felt it was time to stop. ‘It became such a seasonal business,’ Clive says. ‘It was difficult to keep people paid throughout the winter, plus the dollar was really weak so the American thing was less good. Then we lost the Jim Russell contract to Van Diemen. It was the right time to stop making cars.’
Selwyn Hayward died in 2012 and the engineering and parts manufacture, which had carried on where the cars left off, closed its doors in 2015. Clive is still very much an enthusiast though – ‘well, if you love motor sport…’ – and he was happy to allow Mike O’Brien to run his Historic FF team as ‘Classic Team Merlyn’ (O’Brien keeps finding them around the world and he now has four or five).
Clive has also found the Mk11, the first Merlyn Formula Ford that the company made in 1968 for the Australian coming man Tim Schenken. ‘I’m restoring it and I intend to see it race,’ he says. ‘Really, I’m trying to retire from business, but I still make parts for Merlyns. I’ve still got most of the jigs and moulds so I re-activated Colchester Racing Developments Ltd some years ago to make sure Merlyn parts were both correct and available. Thought I’d better do it before somebody else did.’
He goes to the races too. ‘I still get the same twinge of excitement watching my cars. Formula Ford is the best formula there’s ever been.’