The Definitive History of Cyril Kieft and His Racing Cars 1949-1955: The Authorised Biography (Historic Racing Car S.)

The Definitive History of Cyril Kieft and His Racing Cars 1949-1955: The Authorised Biography (Historic Racing Car S.)

Excerpt from Chapter 10
The most notable cars made by Kieft Cars Limited, as far as Cyril Kieft was concerned, were the two 1954 Formula One cars. Rodney Clarke of Connaught Cars, John Heath of HWM and Charles and John Cooper of Cooper Cars had approached Leonard Lee, the Managing Director of Coventry Climax, at the 1952 Earls Court Motor Show. They put forward a proposal that Coventry Climax should make a racing engine suitable for the new 2.5 litre Formula One rules being introduced in 1954. The idea was that the three car constructors would use this British-made engine in the various Formula One cars that they would make. Leonard Lee issued instructions for designing and manufacturing a Grand Prix racing engine immediately the motor show was over and they were back at work in Coventry.

The FPE or Godiva engine as it is more widely known was designed by Harry Mundy the chief Designer for Coventry Climax in close collaboration with Walter Hassan the Technical Director of the company. By the end of 1952 the drawings were complete and work had started on making the various components. In July 1953 the development engine was built and fired up for the first time. A mock-up engine had also been made and this was displayed at the 1953 Earls Court Motor Show on Coventry Climax’s stand. This stand was in the marine section of the boat area. This had all happened within a year and was certainly very good progress. At the time of the 1953 Earls Court Motor Show the first engine was in its development phase, which was expected to take about four months. After this, production engines were to be released to car constructors as they were completed.

Cyril Kieft learnt about the existence of the Coventry Climax FPE engine when he read about it in an August 1953 edition of Autosport. The next day he discussed this with Gordon Bedson and then rang Coventry Climax to inquire about the availability of them. When he rang Coventry Climax he was put in touch with Harry Mundy, who advised Cyril that the engines would be available to anyone who wanted to buy them and that Coventry Climax were taking orders for these engines now. With the ‘bugs’ out of the development engine it would be available for vehicle testing purposes about Christmas time. Harry Mundy told Cyril that Coventry Climax hoped to get orders for fifty engines. Cyril accepted this, ordered three engines on the spot and took an option on a further three. When Cyril asked how much each engine would cost Harry Mundy told him that they would be approximately £2,000 each. Cyril did not think this was too bad for all-new up to the minute Grand Prix racing engines.

With the knowledge that the engines would be available fairly soon and that he had just ordered three, he told Gordon Bedson that they were going to go into Formula One racing and that he could start on the design of a suitable car as soon as possible. Cyril said he told Gordon that he could have a free hand to design the car as he saw fit and there were no constraints on how much he could spend. Gordon started thinking about a design immediately. The resulting car was a conventional front-engine Formula One car with nothing radical about it and very similar to many other cars of the day.

Harry Mundy went to the Wolverhampton works to meet Cyril within a couple of weeks of talking to him on the telephone and he brought a set of three engine templates made of wood and a drawing of the engine so that they could start work on the cars knowing the exact size of the engine. He told Cyril that an engine block would also be sent over for trial fitting as soon as one was available. This happened and a bare block arrived about a month or so later. From this point it took Gordon Bedson about two months to get the design and draught work done. Construction of the two Formula One cars was started in November 1953 in the main workshop next to the last two central-seater cars that were then under construction.

A month or two after ordering the engines from Coventry Climax, Cyril asked Harry Mundy about the maintenance of them. Harry Mundy told Cyril that he would have to maintain the engines himself but that Coventry Climax would always be on hand with help, advice and spare parts. Cyril didn’t like this idea too much and told Harry Mundy that he wanted Coventry Climax to agree to maintain the engines and that he was prepared to pay for this service. In spite of what was said at the time, it is feasible that Coventry Climax would have maintained the engines if they had released them because they were complicated. In 1954 Coventry Climax didn’t, of course, have a department geared up for the maintaining of racing engines, that came later in 1958. However, if the engines had been ready they would have had to gear up earlier.