Gardner Quits, Phillipe Arrives

As D.S.J. has mentioned elsewhere, Derek Gardner has resigned as Design Director at Elf Team Tyrrell. In October he will take up an appointment as DiviSional Director of Engineering and Research with the transmission division of Borg Warner Ltd., at their Letchworth, Herts., Research and Development Centre.

Gardner is no stranger to automotive transmission design: he was a Project Engineer in automotive transmission Systems with Ferguson Research in the 1960s before joining the Tyrrell Racing Organisation in 1970 to design the first Formula One Tyrrell. Since then he has designed every Tyrrell built, including the revolutionary six-wheel projects and can boast 20 Grand Prix wins and two World Championships for his products.

His position at Tyrrell will be taken over by Maurice Phillipe, with whom Gardner worked on the Indianapolis Lotus turbine cars in 1967 when he was with Ferguson and Phillipe was Chief Designer at Lotus.

Like many designers in motor racing, Phillipe graduated from the aircraft industry, in which he worked with De Havilland. He joined Ford as a Project Engineer in 1960 and moved to Lotus as Chief Designer in 1965 after meeting Colin Chapman through racing his own Lotus Seven. As long ago as 1954, when monocoque construction for racing cars was still in its infancy, he had designed, built and raced an 1172 Formula car with an aluminium monocoque.

Phillipe’s most important designs with Lotus were the 49 and 72. The former won 11 G.Ps and the 72 won 14.

In 1971 Phillipe joined the Vel’s Parnelli Jones racing team to design USAC Indianapolis-type cars and the Formula One cars. He set up in his own consultancy business in Britain in 1975 and, conveniently, had been doing consultancy work for Tyrrell since last February.