The modest background figure who helped realise Ford’s first F1 success

‘Any Other Business’. This item at the bottom of an agenda usually signals important matters have been discussed and the meeting is drawing to a close. It’s almost an afterthought. Such a moment of potential minutiae at a Ford committee meeting in the spring of 1966 would actually herald one of the most far-reaching decisions ever made by a major motor manufacturer.

The chairman of the policy committee within Ford of Britain was initially taken aback when he turned to Any Other Business and heard Walter Hayes, the director of public affairs, say he would like Ford to “do a Grand Prix engine”. It may have been delivered as if a casual aside, like suggesting a staff discount for Ford Cortina wing mirrors, but the proposal was born of relevant and knowledgeable discussion among key players alert to a major motor racing opportunity. The subsequent boardroom discussion – surprisingly short given the subject’s significance – would lead to the creation of the Ford Cosworth DFV, the most successful grand prix engine ever made.

This should have been no surprise to anyone familiar with the erudite Hayes and his mastery of public relations. An ability to think outside the box and understand human foibles had been honed during time spent by Hayes in his early thirties as the editor of a British national newspaper. In search of an informed view on motoring, Hayes had signed Colin Chapman as a freelance columnist, the founder of Lotus providing words and thoughts as distinctive as his cars.

The relationship had moved beyond print in 1962 when Sir Patrick Hennessey, the Chairman of Ford of Britain, persuaded Hayes to come on board. This coincided with the launch of the Cortina, destined to become Ford’s most successful European car over the next two decades. The rather mundane image of the saloon car would be enhanced dramatically when Hayes and Chapman came up with the Ford Lotus Cortina and Jim Clark, Chapman’s world champion, flung the white car with its distinctive green flash around racetracks with consummate brilliance.

PLUS: The rise and fall of Lotus as an F1 superpower

Chapman, meanwhile, had been increasingly preoccupied with sourcing a power unit to meet a significant change in the F1 regulations. Having dominated the 1.5-litre era with Coventry Climax engines, a withdrawal by the British firm left Lotus high and dry as the engine formula jumped to three litres at the start of the 1966 season. Chapman’s only reasonable option would be to run his existing cars with engines enlarged to two litres on tight circuits and, in the absence of anything else, buy 3-litre BRM H16s for use on the faster tracks. Being a thoroughly pragmatic engineer, however, Chapman realised neither option would be satisfactory, particularly as the heavy and complex BRM threatened to be slow in both performance and delivery. Far better, he reasoned, to find someone capable of manufacturing a compact and purpose-built 3-litre V8. An approach to the British motor industry (and, indirectly, the British Government) brought little but a sympathetic ear.

Jim Clark took the maiden F1 victory for the Lotus Ford partnership, triggering a historic era for the engine manufacturer

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Seizing the 3-litre opportunity

At around the same time, Hayes had been invited to shoot the breeze over dinner at Chapman’s home in Hertfordshire. Hayes not only came away impressed by his host’s thoughts about an ideal engine, but he was also in accord with Chapman’s passionate concern over the impending loss of British engineering prestige and national pride on the racetracks of the world. The astute Hayes immediately sensed an opening for the Ford Motor Company.

The benefit of Ford’s association with competition had already become evident through success in many categories with production-based engines. But that would be a stroll in a national park compared with the effort needed to scale the pinnacle of global motor sport. As luck would have it, an experienced motoring mountaineer was about to walk through the front door of Ford’s British headquarters at Brentwood in Essex.

Harley F. Copp had made his name by leading the engineering behind various successful Ford road cars in the United States and backing the blue oval’s entry into NASCAR in the 1950s. As the newly appointed head of a special vehicles engineering department in Europe, Copp had chosen to set up his base in Brentwood.

Worth £2.4 million today, this was a considerable sum for the board to consider even though, in the wider scheme of things in 1966, £100,000 would have been a drop in Ford’s vast ocean of road car development costs. Having listened to Hayes’ reasoning, backed by Copp and Chapman’s engineering credentials, the board passed the motion

As soon as Hayes became aware of Copp’s enthusiasm and understanding of motorsport, he arranged to have the American hear Chapman’s ideas at first hand. Chapman had recently since discussed the prospects for a F1 engine with Keith Duckworth, the ‘worth’ in Cosworth Engineering, a company formed in 1958 and now comfortably established in the production of Ford-based Formula Junior, F3 and F2 engines.

Not that Copp needed much persuasion, the clincher was Duckworth’s plan to start with a 4-cylinder F2 engine based on the Ford Cortina cylinder block and then double this up to a 3-litre V8. By doing so, the all-important cylinder head could be tested on the 4-cylinder block before making the commitment to build a V8. Not only would the V8 be uncomplicated, light and powerful – meeting Chapman’s needs – it could also be used by Ford’s PR team to make the link between their passenger cars and grand prix racing. Now Hayes, with the support of Copp, needed to gain the policy committee’s approval for this crucial piece of Any Other Business.

When asked by Chapman how much the V8 might cost, Duckworth had thought for a moment before replying: “Oh…. about £100,000.” Worth £2.4 million today, this was a considerable sum for the board to consider even though, in the wider scheme of things in 1966, £100,000 would have been a drop in Ford’s vast ocean of road car development costs. Having listened to Hayes’ reasoning, backed by Copp and Chapman’s engineering credentials, the board passed the motion without demur. The engine would be known as the Ford Cosworth DFV (Double Four Valve). A momentous piece of motor sport history was under way.

Chapman and Hayes were instrumental in getting Ford to build an engine for grand prix racing

Photo by: David Phipps

From exclusive to ubiquitous

It had been agreed Lotus would initially have exclusive use of the DFV once it was ready to run in 1967. Duckworth was happy to meet Chapman’s wish to make the engine a stressed structural member of his new car. Unlike many of Chapman’s pioneering creations, the Lotus 49 would be relatively simple to allow the team and Cosworth to focus on the new engine. Hayes also took a low-key approach by avoiding fanfare leading up to the combination’s first public appearance in Holland, three races into the 1967 GP season. There would be no official launch. The shakedown was completed by Graham Hill at the Lotus test track in Norfolk and the debut was so understated that Clark had not seen the car, never mind sat in it, when the Lotus transporter arrived in the Zandvoort paddock.

The reaction of rivals can be imagined when Hill smashed the lap record as he took pole. Clark, getting a feel for the green car with its yellow stripe, started from sixth and was perfectly poised to take an unassailable lead when Hill’s engine failed after 11 laps. Reliability problems may have dogged the team for the rest of the season but nine consecutive pole positions (and three more wins for Clark) made it clear that the Lotus-Ford package was in a different league.

Top 10 Lotus F1 drivers ranked: Clark, Andretti, Senna and more

Certainly, Ken Tyrrell had seen enough to return home from Holland and immediately place an order for three DFVs at £7,500 each despite having only the nucleus of an F1 team and very little money to pay for it. Even worse, Tyrrell needed £20,000 if he was to tempt Jackie Stewart to become his driver. It says much about the standing and influence of Hayes that Tyrrell should not delay in paying a visit to Brentwood. Ken was aware that Hayes had singled out Stewart three years before as a young British driver worth supporting.

“Ken said he had heard Jackie Stewart was going to Ferrari,” recalled Hayes. “Well, that was like bringing the British Empire – or the Scottish empire, or whatever – to an end if Stewart went to Ferrari. We couldn’t possibly have that!”

“I had tremendous assistance from Walter,” said Tyrrell. “I said I thought I could get the money, but I wanted someone to stand beside me. Walter said he would see that the money was made available. He provided the £20,000 on the understanding that, when I got sponsorship, I could give it back. It meant I could go ahead, say I had Stewart as my driver, do the deals and pay Walter and Ford back.”

Hayes could see the potential in a French Matra chassis, powered by a DFV, driven by Stewart and entered by Tyrrell. He also chose wisely when selecting Bruce McLaren’s fledgling Formula 1 team to become the third recipient of the Ford engine.

In 1968, there were 12 grands prix: Lotus won five (Hill took the title), while Tyrrell and McLaren claimed three apiece. And so began Ford’s F1 hegemony as the DFV’s presence eventually ranged from one end of the paddock to the other. Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell would score the DFV’s 50th grand prix victory in Canada in 1972; five years later the Wolf of Jody Scheckter made it 100 for Ford at Monaco. The 150th landmark win was one of the closest ever as Elio de Angelis (appropriately in a Lotus) edged Keke Rosberg’s Williams by 0.05s at the end of the 1982 Austrian Grand Prix.

De Angelis takes Ford's 150th F1 grand prix win as an engine manufacturer

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Support for the underdogs

Rosberg would go on to give Ford its 12th and final drivers’ championship that year, the association with Frank Williams highlighting the breadth of Ford’s influence across the F1 spectrum. Frank had relied on off-the-shelf and relatively inexpensive refurbished Ford-Cosworth DFVs when struggling 10 years before. The avuncular figure of Hayes, with his ever-present pipe, had also been a discreet saviour for Williams and others straining to make ends meet.

“I used to lend [Ford] Anglia vans to Frank from time to time, and he would sell them,” reflected Hayes in 1997. “That was how people like Williams raised money to survive. It was the sport’s currency at the time. ‘We need money to go motor racing,’ they would say, ‘and we get it any way we can’. If you had brought in someone from outside and they had seen what was happening, they would have said: ‘But you can’t let him do that to your property! It’s illegal.’ But we didn’t see it that way.”

Such unofficial largesse typified the ability of Hayes to appreciate the benefit of mixing industry and sport for the benefit of both sides. Ford’s relationship with Stewart would last for 40 years, Jackie advising on performance development and playing an up-front role in the promotion of models such as the Sierra 4x4, many of which could be seen in F1 paddock and media car parks due to the deft hand of a Ford public relations team following guidelines established by Hayes.

Hayes had never envisaged a payback extending to 154 grands prix wins (155 if you count the DFY’s solitary victory). When Henry Ford II asked what the proposed engine might achieve, Hayes replied: "I think it will win several grands prix"

Some of his work would be less obvious. In 1997, hearing that the community in Jim Clark’s birthplace was struggling to raise finance for an unpretentious statue to commemorate Fife’s most famous sporting son, Hayes arranged for Ford to foot the bill. As he stood to one side, quietly puffing his pipe at the simple unveiling in the village of Kilmany, Hayes said it was only right and proper to pay tribute to the man who had won the 1965 Indianapolis 500 for Ford and who would have claimed countless grands prix had he not been lost to motorsport less than a year after the debut of DFV. It was part of a return Hayes had ensured Ford fully understood.

In truth, however, Hayes had never envisaged a payback extending to 154 grands prix wins (155 if you count the DFY’s solitary victory). Having secured the backing of Ford of Britain’s policy committee in the Spring of 1966, Hayes had travelled to Detroit to win the approval of the main board. When Henry Ford II asked what the proposed engine might achieve, Hayes had replied: “I think it will win several grands prix. And I also think it’s fairly likely to win a world championship.”

‘Fairly likely’. A deceptively modest prediction, worthy of Any Other Business at any level. 

Ford's takeover of Stewart Grand Prix, running under the Jaguar Racing banner, didn't herald a new golden era for the US manufacturer

Photo by: Andre Vor / Sutton Images

All the gear, no idea: the Jaguar fiasco

If Ford’s involvement in F1 with the DFV engine was a master class in timing, strategy and understanding, the blue oval’s next major association with grand prix racing would be a disaster class in maladministration, false entitlement and naked hubris.

Competing under the ‘Jaguar Racing’ banner between 2000 and 2004 would do little to hide the blue oval’s humiliation. A failure by Ford’s hierarchy in the USA to grasp the extent of the challenge and fully understand what was going on in F1 had caused the problem in the first place.

On paper, the deal for Ford to buy Stewart Grand Prix had seemed logical enough thanks to the persuasive and heartfelt words of a man held in the highest regard by those who mattered at Ford’s HQ in Michigan. Jackie Stewart’s three world championships with Tyrrell and Ford had been matched by the Scotsman’s eloquence as a global ambassador for the motor manufacturer. When Jackie and his son Paul entered F1 with their own team in 1997, Ford helped bankroll an operation that managed to avoid making a loss; an achievement as worthy as winning the 1999 European GP. It seemed to Ford that the hard yards had been covered and Stewart Grand Prix was ripe for purchase as a ready-made entry to F1. The rest, it figured, would be comparatively easy.

That was the prevailing attitude at the London launch of Jaguar Racing. The loudest of many warning bells was unintentionally sounded by Wolfgang Reitzle when the new team principal said in all seriousness that Jaguar would win a couple of races in the coming season and the championship 12 months later.

Jaguar scored four points in 2000 and established a regular place near the bottom of the table. Managers came and went, Reitzle replaced by Indy winner Bobby Rahal, who lasted less than a year after being embarrassed by his friend, Adrian Newey, agreeing to become technical director and then changing his mind.

Niki Lauda’s appointment as team principal had seemed logical enough but not even the Austrian’s knowledge and searing rationality could cut through the web of red tape emanating from Michigan. Forgetting, for a moment, the hopeless expectation of a competitive car emerging from a succession of technical directors, Lauda’s experiences would sum up the institutionalised methods being brought to bear on a team in need of free and fast thinking.

 On Lauda’s first day at Jaguar, he had been presented with a copy of Ford’s ‘Compliance Rules’. “When I asked what this meant,” recalled Lauda, “the finance guy said whatever I did, it had to comply with these rules. When I asked for an example, he said: ‘Say you are in a hotel and you take a water with soda from the mini bar, you have to pay for it. But if you take one without soda, you don’t have to pay for it.’ I told him to keep the book. I would pay for everything with my own money. There would be no expenses from me.

“When everything ended between me and Ford [December 2002], people came all the way over from America and asked to see my account. When the guys at Jaguar said there was no account for Niki Lauda, they said: ‘What do you mean? He must have expenses!’ Can you imagine: they came all that way to look for this bloody mineral water with soda! We had a very good race team in the end, but the people in charge, put there by Ford, had no idea.”

Despite Lauda's best efforts at Jaguar, the project ended in failure

Photo by: James Bearne