WHY I LOVE...
...Brian Hart’s book Hart Power – the full story, by Cosworth co-founder Mike Costin
‘Around 1986 Cosworth bought a 75% holding in Hart Power. We thought that the two businesses would mesh together. We were wrong – as he points out, Brian is very much his own man’
The book Hart Power – the full story, the autobiography of Brian Hart published in 2000, is one I loved reading. I received number 31 of the 75 copies printed and it was very special for me to renew my memories of our time working together.
In the early days, unknowingly, Brian and I would pass each other on our way to work, he travelling up to de Havilland to complete his apprenticeship while I was at Lotus. By 1962 he and I were working for Cosworth with Keith Duckworth, involved with projects as diverse as brazing tubes into the cylinder heads for Formula Junior engines and, of course, development on the Ford-based 105E engine. Brian and I also raced a Lotus 22 together and he went on to become an accomplished driver.
Thinking back, while it was clear Brian was a capable engineer when he was working on the engine dynamometer, it never occurred to me that he’d mature into running his own specialised engine tuning company, Hart Power. That demanded an array of talents including running the team, dealing with the forceful bosses of racing outfits, and maintaining relationships with prestigious customers like Ford.
When Brian left Cosworth he took with him John Lievesley, a member of the team who was a qualified engineer and design draughtsman. Brian was, like me, a very practical engineer while John applied his skills on the drawing board producing camshaft profiles and the like. They complemented each other well, in the same way that I was a good foil for Keith Duckworth.
Around 1986 Cosworth bought a 75% holding in Hart Power as a way of growing our business and bringing Brian’s operation under our control. We felt that Brian and the skills of his team would be a huge bonus to the Cosworth profile and we thought, wrongly as it turned out, that the two businesses would mesh together. But, as Brian points out in his book, he is very much his own man. He couldn’t be managed and two years later we sold the control back to him not long before I retired.
I have a number of books but I rarely have the time to read them thoroughly. From my early memories of watching Brian working on the engine dynamometer at Cosworth, re-reading this book made me realise that there was another side to him that I hadn’t recognised. On the inside front cover he signed it and wrote, ‘Cosworth was great fun’ introducing the tome by saying, ‘I’ve finally got round to writing it.’