…AND THE MAN WHO DID IT
Before he set speed records at Jabbeke, Ken Richardson earned an enviable reputation at ERA and BRM. Here he’s remembered by his son, Paul Richardson
Race engineer Ken Richardson profiled
BEFORE HE JOINED the Standard Motor Company, Ken Richardson had spent 18 years building and testing racing cars. He found fame as the man who developed the Triumph TR2 – and scored a Land Speed Record with it – yet his interest in speed began with motorcycles in his hometown of Bourne, Lincolnshire. His first was a ‘round tank’ BSA, which he acquired at the age of 14, spending many an hour modifying it to increase performance. He then bought a 350 AJS, on which he had a serious accident on the Bourne to Spalding road. He broke both his ankles, yet his obsession with speed was undeterred.
From the age of 15 Ken served a mechanical apprenticeship at Tuck Brothers of Bourne, a local engineering and car maintenance business. He worked under the guidance of Saville ‘Sav’ Turner. Sav, an extremely clever man, became a lifelong friend of Ken’s, and indeed the Richardson family. I remember going round to Sav’s bungalow in South Street with my father on several occasions during their retirement. It was there that I first set eyes on Sav’s huge brass telescope, which was six or seven feet long and 8in in diameter; Sav and Ken would spend many an hour staring at constellations.
‘Ken first demonstrated his skill in a racing car at Donington Park, when he equalled the lap time achieved by Raymond Mays’
The ever-inventive Sav designed an electrical system to replace the limelight stage lighting in London theatres, and Sav and Ken often went down there to install them. The business at Tuck Brothers included a fully equipped machine shop, and an electrical shop for reconditioning electrical generators. Piston rings and other intricate parts were manufactured in the machine shop and engines were re-bored and reconditioned on site. In those days white metal crankshaft bearings were hand-cast in moulds and the final finish accomplished by hand with special scrapers.
After his apprenticeship, Ken was offered the position of manager at an engineering and garage business near Spalding that also specialised in performance tuning. It was during this period, in the late 1920s and early ’30s, that Ken helped local racing driver Raymond Mays, who also lived in Bourne, prepare his racing cars at weekends. These cars were a supercharged Vauxhall Villiers and the ‘White Riley’, which was the forerunner of the first ‘A’ type ERA.
Ken’s professional career in motor racing began when he received a phone call from Raymond Mays in 1934, inviting him to join the recently formed ERA (English Racing Automobiles) team as a mechanic. Ken eagerly accepted and thereafter his career was described by motoring writer Kenneth Ullyett as ‘one of the joyous adventures of motor sport’.
Based in premises adjacent to Raymond Mays’ home, Eastgate House in Bourne, the ERA team raced on circuits and hillclimbs the world over – and very successfully. Ken first demonstrated his skill behind the wheel of a racing car at Donington Park, when he took the Mays ERA for a few warm-up laps and equalled the time eventually achieved by Mays.
Thus impressed, Mays appointed Ken works test driver and reserve driver to the team. I remember Ken relating a story about the tragic loss of Murray Jamieson, the renowned engine and supercharger expert at ERA. The ERA team was racing at Brooklands in the 1930s, and Ken and Murray had just enjoyed a cup of tea together in the pits before the start. Murray decided to watch the first few laps of the race a few hundred yards further round the circuit and on one of the first few laps an accident caused a car to slide off the circuit, demolish a fence and crash into spectators. Tragically, Murray was killed.
Ken remembered having to take Murray’s car and personal effects back to his home in Stamford, near Bourne. He pointed out Murray’s house to me and I’m still reminded of this terrible event whenever I drive past Rutland Terrace.
The ERA team is generally recognised as the cornerstone of British formula motor racing. One of my favourite examples of Ken’s competitive spirit took place in South Africa, where he maintained Raymond Mays’ ERA in a series of races over the Christmas and New Year period of 1937-’38. British and German battleships were anchored in Simonstown harbour on propaganda voyages, and Ray and Ken enjoyed much hospitality with the crews.
Ken, a powerful swimmer, was persuaded to represent the motor racing community in an internaval swimming contest, which included notable drivers such as Earl Howe, Luigi Villoresi, Count Jonny Lurani and Piero Taruffi. The race was across a wide section of the Vaal river near Johannesburg. Ken won the race, much to the surprise of the battle-trained sailors, and didn’t have to buy a drink for a week,
courtesy of Villoresi and Taruffi. He was a keen sportsman who played hockey and tennis at county level, and won the Lincolnshire swimming and diving championships three years running in the 1930s. We still have the trophy he was presented with.
In 1939 Raymond Mays decided to form his own team with his famed ERA R4D. The split with ERA team sponsor Humphrey Cook was amicable and Ken and designer Peter Berthon joined Ray. R4D was campaigned very successfully for the remainder of 1939, even breaking the Shelsley Hillclimb record with a time of 37.37 seconds, powered by a 2.0-litre engine with the usual Zoller supercharger, producing 340bhp. Other events included a second place at Donington, a win at Crystal Palace and another hillclimb record at Prescott, with a time of 46.14 seconds.
When war broke out in 1939 all motor racing activities ceased and Ken volunteered to become a fighter pilot. However, because of the specialised engine knowledge borne of his racing experience, he was seconded by the Government to take charge of an aircraft engine test facility in Coventry. There were eight test brakes for engines including Cyclone radials, American V12 Allisons, and the Rolls-Royce Merlin V12s that powered our Hurricane and Spitfire fighter planes. Ken always advocated that the Merlin was the finest piston-engine ever built.
He was subsequently transferred to a top-secret facility at Barnoldswick in Yorkshire, where he also became involved with a team working on the installation of the new reverse-flow Whittle jet engines into experimental aircraft. The first that took to the air was installed in the tail of a Wellington bomber, with the rear gun turret removed.
Ken also fitted one in the first prototype jet aircraft, the single-seater E28, so-named because of its 28ft wingspan. Twin Whittle jet engines were eventually installed into the experimental F940 – which became Britian’s first production jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor. It first saw active service with 616 Squadron on 12 July 1944.
After the war Ken was approached by Raymond Mays to join his ERA team once more, and the R4D was again campaigned in international hillclimbs and road races with continued success. However, the team was soon concentrating on production of a revolutionary new Grand Prix car: the V16 BRM. The V16 had a design horsepower of 600bhp from its 1500cc supercharged engine and a top speed of 200mph, which was obviously an enormous undertaking for such a small team.
The first prototype was completed in 1949 and Ken spent many a day testing it at the local Folkingham airfield, then Silverstone and even a two-month period at Monza in Italy. Perhaps because of the ambitious nature of the V16 project, it was plagued with financial problems that hampered progress. Yet lack of funding didn’t kill it. The project came to an end when the Formula 1 regulations were changed.
And it was during this time that Ken met Sir John Black of the Standard Motor Company, which had sponsored the building of a test house and the supply of a test brake for BRM. Not long after that, Sir John asked Ken to join the Standard Motor Company to develop its new sports car. And thus a whole new dynasty was born.
‘The team was soon concentrating on production of a revolutionary new Grand Prix car: the V16 BRM’