Sir David Brown was not only an exceptionally talented engineer; he was also an industry mogul, a farmer, a pilot, a super-yacht owner, and supervisor of a race-winning team of Aston Martins. But what is often overlooked is that he was also a talented race driver in his youth.
The young David had been sent to South Africa by David Brown & Sons to help sort out some mining engineering problems. Accompanying him was one of the company’s directors. However this particular director turned out to be rather too fond of some of the local beverages, leaving David to sort out the problems singlehanded.
On returning from South Africa his standing had been raised and he was put in charge of the Keighley Gear Company. As David was now away from his father, he came up with the idea of building a race car, getting as far as casting a straight-eight cylinder block and devising a chassis. Unfortunately, the news of this reached his father’s ears and the plans were firmly stamped on. Undeterred, he completed the chassis and installed a 2-litre Sage engine and Meadows gearbox. He called this homebuilt car the ‘Davbro’. It was more an open tourer than race car, but luck was near at hand.
Amherst Villiers was a brilliant engineer and designer of the superchargers on Blower Bentleys. Villiers approached David Brown to build a supercharger and intercooler for a car he was developing for Raymond Mays. Villiers knew of the engineering capabilities of David Brown & Sons, hence the approach, and the casting and machining was done at Park Works in Huddersfield.
Mays was a driver of exceptional ability and had previously campaigned Brescia Bugattis developed by Villiers. These two Bugattis were entered as ‘Cordon Rouge’ and ‘Cordon Bleu’, the names won’t be lost on the gourmets amongst you! Raymond Mays later went on to be involved with the building and racing of ERA Voiturette Racers and later he pulled British industry together to build BRM Formula One cars. The BRM V16 supercharged cars being the very first BRMs. Eventually BRM won the world championship with Graham Hill when the team was owned by Rubery Owen, a large engineering conglomerate.
The car that Villiers was going to build for Mays was based on a 1921 Vauxhall TT race car. It is thought these cars were built for Grand Prix racing, but the engineers involved did not realise that the regulations were changing, leaving them ineligible to race in GPs. The only decent race they could compete in was the Tourist Trophy Race - hence the TT name. To say this was an almighty cock-up would be an understatement. The new GP regulations required an engine of under 2-litres capacity and these cars were designed with 3-litre engines.
It is worth going into some detail about these original cars since they were undoubtedly advanced and superbly engineered. Unusually it was not the autocratic engineer Laurence Pomeroy who designed them since he had just left to join Daimler. CE King designed the chassis and Dr Harry Ricardo the engine. The latter became Sir Harry Ricardo and Ricardo Engineering are still at the forefront of modern engine technology, supplying the engines for McLaren road cars.
The engine had four cylinders of 85mm x 132mm making a total capacity of 2996cc. It had four valves per cylinder and twin overhead cams driven by spur gears off the front of the engine. There were two detachable bronze cylinder heads with pent combustion chambers. The block was aluminium with wet cast iron liners using Ricardo’s own designed slipper pistons. The crankshaft was a built-up type with a central flywheel which ran in seven ball bearings and roller bearings for the big ends. It also had three plugs per cylinder but often only used one.
Carburation came from a twin choke Zenith. Lubrication was wet sump with jet feed to crank throws and high-pressure feed to valve gear. A unit gearbox was used with multi-plate clutch, with an open prop shaft to the straight bevel geared back axle. Fourwheel brakes were employed with air servo assistance from an engine-driven pump. The chassis was conventional but was upswept over both axles. The wheelbase was 8 feet 11 inches, the track 4 feet 5 inches, and the car’s total weight came in at 22.5 cwt (1,143kg). A quoted output was 129bhp at 4,300rpm, but the engine had a very low compression ratio of 5.8-1. Top speed was in the order of 112mph.
So this was the base that Amherst Villiers worked on. By the time he had finished re-engineering the cars they had 240 bhp and were capable of 140mph, which was comparable to the GP cars of 1929 when the Vauxhall Villiers started to compete.
Back to Amherst Villiers’ approach to David Brown. Sir David agreed he would build the superchargers provided Villiers provide enough spares to enable him to build a car for himself. Villiers agreed on the proviso that the Villiers name in 6-inch letters be carried on the car.
The Villiers cars were built up and ready for testing on Holme Moss Hill, near to Huddersfield and one of the David Brown factories. This piece of public road was well known to David Brown who did not have to worry about other traffic with the tests being conducted early in the morning - in 1929 there would have been little traffic during peak periods anyway. Raymond Mays was late and Villiers, being keen to get on with the test, asked if David would do the honours.
Recalling Villiers’ reaction, Sir David said ‘I think he was surprised in the manner which I conducted it up and down the hill, which I knew backwards.’ The next morning Mays came out for the tests and ‘he couldn’t go as fast as I had because I knew the hill so well’. Naturally Villiers was delighted and readily agreed to sell David the spares for his own car.
David cut the chassis down by 6 inches and made it underslung. He fitted a worm drive axle of his company’s own manufacture with a lockable differential. The car was entered three years running at the Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb. On 14 September 1929 David Brown came second in the 2-3 litre racing car class with a time of 48.6 seconds, which was three seconds behind Raymond Mays who won the class and broke the course record. On 12 July 1930 he set a time of 47.0 seconds and won the class. Raymond Mays was set to share the car with David Brown that day but did not compete. The car was again entered for the 13 September meeting in 1930 but was a non-starter. It is claimed that the car also won at least 13 races on the sands at Southport, but at the time of writing I am unable to verify this. However, I have some period newspaper cuttings which confirm David Brown winning races there against some of the best drivers of the day, including the likes of Malcolm Campbell and Kaye Don.
So what stopped David continuing racing beyond 1931? It was the unfortunate death of his father which meant he had to take over the reins of what had become a large company – though it was nothing in comparison with what it would become over the next 20 years when it employed over 17,000 people. David had served alongside WS Roe, who had been brought into the company for his organisational abilities by David’s father Frank and his uncle Percy Brown. Sadly, Roe suffered from ill health and was unable to take up the role of Managing Director following the deaths of Percy and Frank, leaving David to become MD. Of course, we are reminded of Sir David Brown’s legacy today by his initials on modern Aston Martins, the latest model being the DB12.
I should point out for all you DB5 owners that while this model was the Bond film car, it did not feature in the first book Bond book, Casino Royale. Amherst Villiers was a close friend of Ian Fleming and as a mark of respect to Villiers he made Bond’s first car a battleship grey Blower Bentley. When that car was in an accident Bond was given a DB Mk III in Goldfinger. One of Fleming’s neighbours had a DB2/4 and in the armrest of this model is a very complete tool kit, which no doubt inspired Fleming. I see all you DB5 owners now flocking to buy a proper Bond car, a DB Mk III or dare I say it, a Blower Bentley!
Finally, I should give my thanks to various people who have given freely of their help in supplying the correct facts for this article. They are Martyn Griffiths, Southport Beach Racing Archivist; David Moore, The Midland Automobile Club Archivist; and Adam Brown, grandson of Sir David Brown.
For those of you interested in Aston Martin history, there is a wonderful searchable archive of period glass negative photographs online at austinharris.co.uk. These contain photographs of early Aston Martins competing and David Brown competing at Shelsley Walsh and Southport Sands.