The unique sportscar back on track after nearly 70 years

To many onlookers, the battle-scarred pea green Willment sportscar at the back of the eclectic Historic Sports Car Club Griffiths Haig Trophy races at Silverstone at the end of May might have been overlooked as insignificant.

But, for owner Andy Storer, returning a unique bolide to the scene of its penultimate race, with emerging talent Graham Hill at the wheel, on 14 September 1957, marked the emotional end of a 20-year odyssey.

John Willment’s stellar motorsport legacy was topped by his JW Automotive Engineering team’s Le Mans victories with Ford in 1968 and 1969, but its early steps were riddled with grandiose folly.

Willment had the ability to create technical tours de force, and nous for employing great people but, mirroring BRM’s shaky start, over-complication delayed projects destined for underachievement.

Willment’s 500cc Formula 3 car is a salient example. Simplicity should have been key but, instead, Willment’s creation – clothed in lavish aluminium bodywork – featured a bespoke water-cooled four-cylinder DOHC engine, mated to a custom-made transaxle. The streamliner may not have raced, but photographs set eyes popping.      

Its 1500cc Willment sports-racer successor at least reached the circuits. Replete with razor-edged clamshell-ended body and swooping tail crafted by coachbuilder Grays of Poole, it looked the part.

The chassis was in two pieces at times during Storer’s restoration

Photo by: Mick Walker

If the alloy Coventry-Climax FWB SOHC engine, canted left, was a nod to convention, its drivetrain and running gear were not. Willment cast his own five-speed gearbox, diff casing and brake drums, mounted inboard at the rear within the crook of a tubular de Dion axle.

For wheels, John went to Italy for the best money could buy. The legend ‘Willment-Climax by Borrani’ is even engraved into the centres.

The car was raced sparingly between tests. On 9 September 1956, Les Leston retired the distinctive #35 machine from the British Racing & Sports Car Club F2 race at Brands Hatch – named for the slow-starting 1500cc class, yet comprised of sportscars, it was won by Colin Chapman’s Lotus 11.

The sportscar was initially entered for Graham Hill at Brands Hatch – thought to be the future double F1 world champion’s first professional engagement

Leston was entered by Willment Speed Shop, headed by brilliant chief engineer John ‘Spike’ Winter, who joined Willment’s expanding Twickenham empire.  

In 1957, the sportscar was initially entered for Graham Hill at Brands Hatch on 5 August – thought to be the future double F1 world champion’s first professional engagement, something even Damon Hill knew nothing of until the Willment’s saviour Storer joined Goodwood’s 2022 Revival cavalcade honouring his father, 60 years after his first title with BRM.

At Brands, late entry #36 Hill finished second to Chapman. Again entered by CJ Willment, as #37 Hill was unplaced in the BRDC’s International Trophy race at Silverstone on 14 September.

Car had some illustrious former drivers, including double F1 champion Hill

Photo by: Mick Walker

Storer only discovered recently that three weeks later, Vanwall F1 star Stuart Lewis-Evans drove the car to eighth in the Oulton Park Gold Cup race. As #5, they finished three laps down, one ahead of Hill’s Lotus.

On Boxing Day 1957, Lewis-Evans was third at Brands in the first production version, powered by a Climax FPF twin-cam engine. It was previously track tested there by Autosport’s John Bolster, whose story was published in the magazine’s 6 December edition. That the Willment Speed Shop opened a Californian division to augment a US West Coast dealer added to the fledgling marque’s credibility.

However, the car was set aside when new regulations for 1958 outlawed the centre-seat configuration espoused by Cooper for its popular T39s and stipulated minimum cockpit aperture widths and windscreen heights.

The machine had lain stripped of its engine in one of Willment’s sheds near the RHS’s Wisley gardens since 1957. That was until Storer acquired the sportscar following Willment’s death in May 1997.

Storer’s motorsport roots, like Willment’s, lie in Austin 7s. Close to the family for 40 years, he ran JW’s daughter Janet (Avia) in a Formula Vee Scarab, designed by A7 soulmate Stuart Rolt.

“The tubular steel chassis was cut in half for storage, but the green bodywork remained, with its silver and blue stripes [possibly a hangover from Leston’s racing colours] and the remains of the number 36 painted on the nose roundel,” says Storer of what he found.

A 1500cc Climax engine powers the unique Willment sportscar

Photo by: Mick Walker

“Although it would have been simpler to repaint the panels, I did not want to strip away their originality so I’ve left them, wonderfully patinated by time.

“The gearbox, diff and brake drum castings were remade from period patterns for safety, and in LM25 alloy for strength and cost, but the Climax engine is to period specification and the wheels are original. Borrani kindly sent me the drawings, which was incredible. 

“Recommissioning any long-dormant car, making it into a runner – the Willment was just about that for Goodwood’s celebration three years ago – is a far cry from preparing one to race again.

“In life you have to deal with what is thrown at you, but I have to say the restoration work has been therapeutic” Andy Storer

“I took it to Blyton for a test before Silverstone, to make sure we didn’t embarrass ourselves. But, watched by John Willment’s granddaughter Lucia and Les Leston’s grandson Ollie, we pulled 98.2mph on the Hangar Straight and finished both races, a lap down.

“Just finishing the car in time was a challenge. Because of its International Trophy meeting history, the retro event had to be the target to restart its CV. Unfortunately, my partner Anne was taken critically ill last summer, but her recovery continues in hospital.

“In life you have to deal with what is thrown at you, but I have to say the restoration work between visits has been therapeutic. Without support from family, friends and the wider motorsport community it would not have been possible.”

Hill racing the Willment to a Brands Hatch podium back in 1957

Photo by: George Phillips

The man behind the original machine

John Willment was ambitious, charismatic and loyal, with business acumen to match his wealth. Born in 1928, his family’s construction firm Willment Brothers – with father Charles at its helm – made its fortune demolishing and redeveloping Second World War-ravaged London. Indulging and sustaining a passion for speed was never a problem.

His eye for design and engineering created some extraordinary cars. Having established a pioneering speed shop, then a spectacular Ford dealer group that spawned Europe’s largest racing team, John Willment appeared omnipresent.

His JW Automotive Engineering business, managed by old friend John Wyer, underpinned the Ford GT40 programme that won four Le Mans 24 Hour races – 1968 and 1969 with its own Gulf-backed team, which later worked its magic on Porsche 917s. 

Willment’s competition ‘career’ started with the Austin 7 Special ‘Press On Regardless’, developed and shared in 750 Motor Club trials with school pal Derek Wootton. Through another friend, Randle Ayrton, he met Aston Martin racer Dudley Folland and Wyer, MD of the Monaco Motors & Engineering Company in Watford.

Monaco Motors rebodied Ayrton’s Bugatti, which Willment competed in, and built the tiny Monaco 500, commissioned by Bournemouth motor dealer George Hartwell in 1947.

Willment’s own 500 was too complex, but lessons learned from the sportscar outlined here led to a run of five or six 1500cc and two-litre Climax FPF-engined production racers, winners in Britain and the USA.

But it was Willment’s Fords – white and red-striped Anglia 105Es, Cortina GTs, Lotus Cortinas and the seven-litre Galaxie in which Jack Sears won the 1963 British championship – managed by racer Jeff Uren and cleverly marketed under the ‘Race Proved by Willment’ banner that earned Henry Ford’s respect and trust, presaging greater things.

Sears excelled in Willment AC Cobras too, most notably the equivalent of Carroll Shelby’s Daytona Coupes, built in-house. Local hero Jack duly won the foggy 1964 Autosport Three Hours at Snetterton.

Willment entered F1 with Australians Paul Hawkins and Frank Gardner, and in the three-litre era his own chassis was to be powered by Coventry-Climax’s Godiva V8, too late for Kieft’s 1950s’ GP entry.

Lotus 30 and Willment-BRM sportscars, a Lotus Elan for F1-bound suspension guru John Miles and Escorts for Mike Crabtree brought Willment’s racing to a close in 1973. 

This article is one of many in the new monthly issue of Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the August 2025 issue and subscribe today.

Autosport’s John Bolster track tested the first production version at Brands Hatch in 1957

Photo by: Autosport