{"id":498713,"date":"2020-04-21T17:13:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T00:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=105488"},"modified":"2024-05-18T16:15:33","modified_gmt":"2024-05-18T16:15:33","slug":"the-valiant-vanwalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/the-valiant-vanwalls\/","title":{"rendered":"The Valiant Vanwalls"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 1950s, Britain struggled to find its place in Formula One racing. Fed up with BRM\u2019s attempt, Tony Vandervell took the bit between his teeth and fielded cars of his own devising. The result was heartening success against the dominant Italians.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The scion of an inventive master of electricity applications, Tony Vandervell prospered on the sale of thin-wall bearings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the age of 32, Guy Anthony \u201cTony\u201d Vandervell had an epiphany. A great motor sports enthusiast who had raced motorcycles since he was 15 and was a dispatch rider in the Great War, he learned in 1930 of a new kind of engine bearing that was developed in America. This was of interest to him because his successful industrialist father had bought a small bearing business in a London suburb and put Tony in charge. His dad felt that this was the best way to get his willful and opinionated son involved in the business world.<\/p>\n

From this acorn grew a great oak of a business that would immerse Tony Vandervell deeply in all aspects of Britain\u2019s motor industry. He would support the all-British BRM effort, only to leave in disgust and found his own racing team, conflating his own name and his \u201cThinwall\u201d bearings to create the name \u201cVanwall\u201d for his cars. Racing them from 1954 to 1961, he would hit the heights in 1958 by winning the newly established Constructors\u2019 Championship with some of the greatest performances of Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks.<\/p>\n

The epiphany that changed Tony Vandervell\u2019s life was the 1930 news that Clevite in Cleveland, USA had developed what it called a \u201cthinwall\u201d bearing. It replaced old-fashioned babbitt bearings that had to be poured in place and laboriously hand-finished to size. Instead the bearing was a snap-in part backed by a steel strip, to which a coating of copper alloyed with 256% lead and 2% tin was metallurgically bonded. This was then plated to a depth of 0.002 inch by a soft but durable alloy of lead and indium that helped the bearing cope with severe conditions.<\/p>\n

With the help of his father, who backed him in buying the necessary production equipment, Tony Vandervell successfully acquired the British rights to make the new-fangled bearings. By 1936 he was manufacturing them in quantity at the new factory of Vandervell Products Ltd. in the west London suburb of Acton. He was up and running just in time to help with wartime rearmament, working closely with Acton neighbor Napier, producer of advanced aircraft engines.<\/p>\n

When the BRM project was launched after World War II to build a British Grand Prix car, Vandervell was an enthusiastic backer in both cash and bearings for its ambitious V-16 engine. However, Tony became disillusioned with the desultory progress of the car and the incompetence of its technical personnel. The last straw was the 1951 Italian Grand Prix, when an engine failed in practice because a clogged filter in its oil reservoir hadn\u2019t been cleaned after several engine failures\u2014a catastrophic and unforgivable oversight.<\/p>\n

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When BRM blamed the failure of its ill-prepared V16 in the 1951 Italian Grand Prix on Vandervell’s bearings, he decided it was time to build his own car. Photo: Pete Austin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even worse, team major domo Raymond Mays told the press the cause was \u201cbearing failure.\u201d This outraged Vandervell, who was at Monza for the race. His bearings could hardly be blamed if they weren\u2019t getting oil. This was the final straw. He even initiated a lawsuit against Mays over damage to his reputation. Before the end of the year Vandervell resigned from the BRM Trust \u201cfor personal reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

This confirmed a decision that the industrialist had taken at the beginning of 1950, which was to be less involved with BRM and to set up a racing operation of his own. He engaged a former BRM man as chief mechanic and set up a racing department at his Acton factory. One of his engineers, Frederick \u201cFreddie\u201d Fox, was to become intimately involved with Vandervell\u2019s racing cars.<\/p>\n

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The Vanwall team at Casablanca in 1957.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Tony Vandervell had been competing with various Ferrari models in British racing. In fact, in 1952, he became the BRM\u2019s toughest rival in domestic events with a rebuilt 4\u00bd-liter V-12 single-seater of Maranello origins. Looking for chassis improvements, Tony contacted Goodyear\u2019s Aviation Division to see whether it could adapt its successful aircraft disc brakes to his racing cars. Getting a positive response, he commissioned design work from Goodyear that would lead to disc brakes made in his own workshops. An original feature was radial drilling inside the discs for lightness and heat dissipation. Simplified and lightened, these were used on the Grand Prix Vanwall.<\/p>\n

Over the 1951-\u201952 winter Tony Vandervell began gearing up his activity to take on an ambitious project: the building of a new British Grand Prix car. Starting out with a 2.0-liter four that could compete in Formula Two, he would build up to a 2\u00bd-liter engine to suit the new Formula One taking effect in 1954. These cars and their successors would be dubbed \u201cVanwall Special\u201d at first and then simply \u201cVanwall.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Norton\u2019s \u201cdouble-knocker\u201d 499 cc racing single was the gold standard of specific output. Vandervell took advantage of BRM\u2019s work on a water-cooled version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The idea of a four-cylinder engine\u2014unusual when most F1 engines were sixes and eights\u2014came from Tony\u2019s association with BRM. At the end of the 1940s, BRM obtained a contract to build a water-cooled version of the air-cooled Norton motorcycle racing engine. By virtue of the higher compression ratio allowed by liquid cooling it produced 6% more power than the air-cooled original. Four times the Norton\u2019s 499-cc made 2-liters, good for a starting point.<\/p>\n

With this experience under his belt, Vandervell tightened it a notch and started work on his first original design, intended for the two\u2011liter F2 racing of 1953. At first his team was mainly concentrating on engine creation so the chassis and driveline were patterned after Ferrari ideas. This meant front suspension by parallel wishbones and a de Dion rear suspension, both sprung by transverse leaf springs. The frame was special, built by Cooper and designed by that company\u2019s Owen Maddock, who gave it some elements of the increasingly popular spaceframe.<\/p>\n

The rear transaxle was also Ferrari-inspired, placing its shafts flat in unit with, and ahead of, the differential. Initially four-speed, a fifth starting gear was added in 1956. More than any other factor, the position and size of this transmission forced the Vanwall\u2019s driver high in the air. A change from Ferrari practice was mounting the rear brakes inboard next to the differential.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of 1956, Porsche was asked to design synchromesh for this transaxle, which it did with its usual split-ring design under its Project 687. Just why this was done was not certain, for drivers generally liked fast dog-clutch changes that took little effort in contrast to synchromesh, which added resistance. That was certainly the view of Stirling Moss, who found that \u201cwhat never improved was the agricultural nature of that hefty gearchange.\u201d On one drive Tony Brooks\u2019s palm came away looking like hamburger.<\/p>\n

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Shown in fuel-injected form, the Vanwall four had a train of spur gears driving its accessories with oil pumps and water pump at the bottom of the train.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Vanwall powerplant was a curious and conflicting combination of antique and advanced techniques. Its success was partially ensured by its origin, which was the single\u2011cylinder, half\u2011liter Norton engine that long kept England supreme in motorcycle and Formula 3 Grand Prix racing. On a power\u2011per\u2011liter basis it had always been one of the world\u2019s great engines. Its Manx version of 86.0 x 85.6 mm for 499-cc developed an air-cooled 54 bhp at 7,200 rpm, a valuable 108 bhp per liter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Produced in Vandervell\u2019s Park Royal toolrooms, in the London borough of Acton, the engine was composed of a high-topped, deep-walled crankcase of aluminum alloy into which the individual cast-iron cylinders were deeply spigoted, a water jacket and a shallow cylinder head of high-strength aluminum with separate cam boxes and exposed valve springs. The whole was held together by 10 long high-tensile steel tie bolts from the head to the main-bearing caps.<\/p>\n

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Vandervell\u2019s facilities included this dynamometer for engine development. The engine suffered from flat spots in its power delivery that were gradually cured.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nestling inside the tie bolts and topped and bottomed by rubber sealing rings, the cast aluminum water jacket steadied and sealed the whole assembly. A structural role was played by the cylinders, which fitted into a radiused countersink in the head. Fire sealing at this crucial joint was problematic until 1956, when corrugated stainless-steel Cooper rings were adopted.<\/p>\n

As would be expected the cylinder-head layout was very Norton, with the valves equally angled at a total of 60\u00ba but with the apex of the vee subtly shifted to the exhaust side to make more room for the inlet valve. Engine maestro Eric Richter\u2014who had worked on BRM\u2019s water-cooled Norton\u2014stayed loyal to its well-proven valve gear, which addressed the cam lobe with the crowned surface of a small cylindrical sliding tappet. This in turn pushed an adjustable cap atop the valve stem.<\/p>\n

As in the motorcycle engine, exposed hairpin-type valve springs closed the valves. These turned out to be a weighty cross for the team to bear, afflicted as they were by random failures. \u201cBefore any springs were used on an engine,\u201d wrote Denis Jenkinson, \u201cthey were run on a test rig for one hour at 2,000 rpm, then ten minutes at 7,000 rpm and 50 minutes at 4,000 rpm. A total of 15 hours was done on this test rig, involving something like 1\u00bd million \u2018pinches\u2019.\u201d Even after all this, rogue springs failed when the engine was tested and even raced.<\/p>\n

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Both Vanwall engine and car attracted admiration for the excellence of fabrication by the Vandervell tool room. Radiator header tank was on driver side of the firewall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Special features included the Norton\u2019s angled inlet porting, proven to give the mixture an energizing swirl on entry. In the aluminum head, whose water jacket extended down past the mating surface with the cylinder liner, Richter exposed the exhaust-valve guide to the coolant and gave it finning for extra heat transfer. Vandervell and Richter continued their magpie approach to proven equipment in preparing their engine\u2019s bottom end. They chose as a model a Rolls-Royce military engine, the four-cylinder 2.8-liter B40, which powered the Austin Champ. Its conservative bore diameter of 88.9 mm meant a cylinder-to-cylinder center distance that suited their plans.<\/p>\n

Skirts of the smooth\u2011sided crankcase extended well below the crankshaft centerline, requiring only a shallow sump cover. Ample support was provided for the five main bearings and the fully counterweighted crank. The first engines followed the Rolls-Royce design with no center main bearing, the latter eventually being added. The H\u2011section shanks of the polished nickel-steel connecting rods blended tangentially with the wrist-pin end.<\/p>\n

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Seen in 1955 trim, the Vanwall four used Amal carburetor bodies as slide throttles for its air inlets, They were angled rearward to suit the passages as in the Norton original.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For 1954, this unique engine was fed by four Grand\u2011Prix\u2011type Amal carburetors, their slide throttles raised by four quarter\u2011pulleys and cables pivoted from a shaft along the intake-cam cover. Two Amal float chambers were used, suspended from rubber diaphragms. Big bell-mouthed stacks smoothed out incoming air flow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For the 1955, season Bosch fuel injection replaced carburetors. Placed just above the magneto, the pump was driven directly by the camshaft gear train. Each injection nozzle was anchored by two studs to a head passage, which opened on the intake port just upstream from the valve seat. The injecting spray bounced off the back of the head of the intake valve.<\/p>\n

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Peter Collins, who had driven Vandervell\u2019s modified Ferraris, finished seventh in the 1954 Italian Grand Prix in this early version of the Grand Prix car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Initially fuel piping to the nozzles was by metal tubing, resulting in vibration\u2011induced cracks and failures at dramatic moments. Finally an aircraft\u2011type flexible hose was found for the job. The Amal bodies and their control system were retained to serve as slide throttles. An additional lever arm, pullrod and shaft system regulated the Bosch pump output in proportion to throttle opening. Use of this simple yet effective injection, developed for Vandervell by ex\u2011Norton engineer Leo Kuzmicki, was key to the engine\u2019s high output.<\/p>\n

During the 1954 season the four was progressively increased in size, first to 2,262-cc with 91.5 x 86.0 mm dimensions and ultimately to the full 2\u00bd liters allowable. Its final measurements were 96.0 x 86.0 mm for 2,490-cc. Inevitably a high-speed engine of such size posed problems with vibration, which took its toll on the fuel-feed systems and other elements of the car. In spite of the best efforts of an able team the engine was never fully reliable.<\/p>\n

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Ken Wharton drove the 1955-version Vanwall in the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone on 7 May. A crash resulted in a blaze that wrote off the car.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Tony and his team the 1955 season\u2014for which the team had built four new cars\u2014was sporadic at best. Wins came only for Harry Schell in short local events, the cars failing in all four Grands Prix contested. The elaborate induction arrangements were a consistent source of retirements. Feeling that he was not accomplishing much as a breaker of throttle linkages and injection pipes, Mike Hawthorn returned to Ferrari in mid-year.<\/p>\n

In preparation for 1956 the specialists were consulted. Harry Weslake, Britain\u2019s resident expert on gas flow, took over the detail development of the engine, while Daimler\u2011Benz and Robert Bosch provided useful hints on the art of methanol injection.<\/p>\n

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Frank Costin\u2019s contribution included not only the body but also the ducting of the Vanwall\u2019s water\/oil radiator, behind which is the engine\u2019s oil reservoir.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tony Vandervell placed his entire chassis and body-design problem\u2014a weighty package\u2014in the talented hands of Colin Chapman and Frank Costin, creators of the exceptional Lotus Eleven sports racer. Though these gentlemen were not then familiar with the speed spectrum ranging upward from 120 to 190 miles per hour\u2014at least as related to automobiles\u2014they were endowed with good sense and a willingness to learn.<\/p>\n

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The complete rebuild of the Vanwall car for 1956 included Colin Chapman\u2019s space frame, with the front at lower right. Light yet rigid, it marked a big step forward.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chapman\u2019s contribution was the redistribution of components and the creation of a lightweight chassis to hold them together. His frame was a very deep space\u2011type assembly of a few moderate\u2011sized tubes\u2014principal ones 1\u00bc inches in diameter\u2014placed to do the maximum amount of work. A stressed drilled sheet low at the front kept the original Vanwall wishbone assemblies rigidly aligned, now fitted with coil springs, while a pyramided cowl structure accepted the high bending stresses at the center of the car. With all attachment brackets the frame balanced out at 87\u00bd pounds.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The steering box was high next to the right\u2011hand front suspension group, attacking the wheels through a three-piece track rod. Extending forward virtually parallel with the wheels and inboard from the knuckles, the I\u2011section steering arms gave negligible Ackermann effect. The Vanwall\u2019s steering was almost disconcertingly light as a result.<\/p>\n

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Although of Ferrari inspiration, Vanwall front suspension was made in house. Disc brakes were in-house also, based on Goodyear\u2019s aviation designs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

De Dion rear suspension was retained but completely reinterpreted by Chapman. Ferrari-style parallel trailing arms were lengthened and repositioned. A Watt\u2019s link system served for lateral location. High above the hubs a slim five\u2011leaf spring was transversely mounted between rollers, as originated by Ferrari for racing, to increase stiffness in roll.<\/p>\n

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A Ferrari concept adopted by Vandervell, the five-speed transaxle was under the Vanwall\u2019s driver\u2019s seat. Ducts took cooling air to the inboard rear disc brakes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From the first, brackets were provided for the anchoring of coil spring and damper units, which replaced the leaf springs at the end of 1956. Intense research during 1957\u2019s practice periods, including valuable days at the N\u00fcrburgring, minimized the new layout\u2019s teething troubles, namely front-wheel patter and a hesitant transition to the four-wheel drift.<\/p>\n

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For Tony Vandervell the Stirling Moss victory at Pescara in 1957 was validation that his cars were at or near the top of the tree in Formula One.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Detail improvements, an important one being a change from Armstrong to Fichtel and Sachs dampers, allowed Stirling Moss\u2014a team driver from the start of 1956\u2014to fling the Vanwall around like a Cooper in 1957\u2019s Pescara Grand Prix, which he won while taking fastest lap. \u201cTo enhance rear-end grip still more,\u201d said Moss of Chapman, \u201che gave the rear wheels three degrees negative camber, leaning inward at the top. This also made them even more convenient as footsteps to help us climb into that high, deeply screened cockpit!\u201d<\/p>\n

Frenchman Maurice Trintignant, on the team in 1956, was if anything shorter than Moss, and when he first tried a Vanwall at Monaco he was dismayed at having to look through <\/em>its high curved windscreen. He was no happier when told that its height determined the volume of air that was drawn over the rear brakes and thus couldn\u2019t be changed. This was typical of the taut, rigorous way in which Frank Costin integrated a body with friend Colin\u2019s chassis. Trintignant\u2019s season, by the way, was a washout with retirements in all four entries.<\/p>\n

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The much-changed Vanwall made a brilliant debut in the May 1956 non-Championship Silverstone race, here with Harry Schell leading Stirling Moss.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A striking feature of the Vanwall\u2019s radical aluminum shell was the thorough attention given to underbody streamlining. Combined with its upper contours and high tail it helped reduce the effects of side winds. The fully shielded cockpit had benefits in comfort for the drivers but drawing the rear\u2011brake air upward accounted for their chimney\u2011sweep complexions at the end of a long race.<\/p>\n

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Ducting was ascetically simple. A trapezoidal hole let air down through a mesh screen into the fiberglass (once aluminum) air box shrouding the Amal intake stacks. Cockpit vent scoops were built into the rear-view mirror housings while radiator air found its way out to the low\u2011pressure areas at the front-suspension apertures. Costin showed the great potential available in reducing to the max the size of the radiator-air inlet.<\/p>\n

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Team leader for Vanwall in 1956, Harry Schell started fifth on the grid in the British GP at Silverstone but broke a damper and retired with fuel-system blockage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The main 39\u2011gallon fuel tank was in the tail, strapped to a triangulated frame extension. Two 15\u2011gallon auxiliaries were slung outboard on either side of the cowl, an arrangement much like that of the original Vanwalls. Heavy flex hoses joined the three tanks at a selector valve on the right of the cockpit. A fuel filter and pump were mounted at the engine\u2019s left front, belt\u2011driven from the crankshaft nose.<\/p>\n

Early Vanwalls had impressive but overbearing engine\u2011turned dash panels, which gave way to a less blinding flat\u2011black finish. Instruments were tachometer, either 8,000 rpm Jaeger or 9,000 rev Smiths, oil and water temperature, oil pressure and fuel pressure. Gear lever was at the left, emerging from a simple gate atop a massive cast housing. A tiny handbrake was at the right. .<\/p>\n

Tony Vandervell enjoyed a drive in the transformed Vanwall before it received its distinctive dark blue-green livery. \u201cI first tried it briefly at Silverstone on 10 October,\u201d said Stirling Moss, \u201cmy diary assessing it simply as \u2018Bloody quick\u2019. They took two cars to Oulton Park on 22 October for a Grand Prix distance test. I drove one for 1 hour 50 minutes until its suspension broke and the other for 2 hours 30 minutes until an injector pipe broke. I had many reservations but this was clearly the first green Grand Prix car I had ever driven which showed such winning potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With the Ferraris fading in the May 1956 Silverstone race, Moss went on to a victorious debut for Tony Vandervell\u2019s new creation. But Schell retired.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although still skeptical about the Vanwall\u2019s staying power, Moss signed with Vanwall for the 1957 season. Though committed to racing Maseratis in 1956, he drove the Vanwall in the non-Championship 176-mile BRDC International Trophy race at Silverstone on May 5, 1956. Sensationally Moss won from pole by a lap after Ferrari\u2019s two entries retired. Franco-American Harry Schell led the Vanwall attack in 1956, in which 12 starts in four Grands Prix produced only one decent finish, a fourth at Spa for Schell. With reliability all but nonexistent, the team had much to do to prepare for Moss\u2019s arrival in 1957 together with Tony Brooks.<\/p>\n

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Stirling Moss started in number 18 Vanwall in 1957\u2019s British GP at Aintree, but retired and jumped into Brooks\u2019s number 20, with which he scored an historic victory.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During 1957, Vandervell froze the basic design of his cars, assigning his designers the task of creating specialized editions to suit particular circuits as Mercedes-Benz had done in 1955. One example was a pug nose for the Monaco team cars, complete with nerfing bars. In 1956, two Vanwalls had retired prematurely, their long snouts dented during early\u2011lap infighting and the cooling suffering as a result.<\/p>\n

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Frank Costin\u2019s streamliner was created for the fast Reims circuit for the 1957 French GP but didn\u2019t race. Two standard Vanwalls placed third and fifth, scoring points.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most outlandish was the Reims \u201cstreamliner\u201d. Frank Costin brought forth a highly original interpretation of a racing car. Front wheels were fully enclosed by sweeping fenders, pierced at the nose by three intakes for brakes and engine. A clamshell\u2011like lid capped each rear wheel. The impression was of a vehicle that might easily become a potent sports car if its builder willed it\u2014though this was unlikely, at least in that form.<\/p>\n

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Aerodynamics guru Frank Costin created a Perspex bubble to gain speed for the Vanwalls at Monza in 1958. Though promising it was rejected as far too noisy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evaluation of the Reims variant was vitiated by confusion over gear ratios and engine power and not used at the race or ever. Nor was another aerodynamic aid successful, a complete enclosure of the cockpit by a Perspex bubble for Monza in 1958. It gave an additional 50 rpm on the straights but even with earplugs it intensified the racket in the cockpit so was set aside.<\/p>\n

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On 18 August 1957 newcomer Stuart Lewis-Evans finished fifth at Pescara, displaying the exhaust manifolding aimed at replicating the pipe lengths that worked for Norton.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moss missed some races in early 1957 owing to ill health, which for team manager David Yorke opened an opportunity for a relative newcomer, Stuart Lewis-Evans, to step in and show considerable promise. A highlight was the British G.P. at Aintree on July 20, which Stirling Moss won in the car started by Tony Brooks. This made the Vanwall the first British car to win a race for World Championship points. Stirling won again at Pescara and Monza, finishing second to Fangio for the third year in a row in the Drivers\u2019 Championship.<\/p>\n