:''"BRM" redirects here. For other uses, please see BRM (disambiguation).''

British Racing Motors (generally known as BRM) was a British Formula One motor racing team. Founded in 1945, it raced from 1950 to 1977, competing in 197 Grands Prix and winning 17. In 1962, BRM won the Constructors' Title. At the same time, its driver, Graham Hill became World Champion. In 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1971, BRM came second in the Constructors' Competition.

History

BRM was founded just after the Second World War by Raymond Mays, who had built several hillclimb and road racing cars under the ERA brand before the war, and Peter Berthon, a long-time associate. Mays' pre-war successes (and access to pre-war Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union design documents) inspired him to build an all-British Grand Prix car for the post-war era as a national prestige project, with financial and industrial backing from the British motor industry and its suppliers channelled through a trust fund.

This proved to be an unwieldy way of organising and financing the project, and as some of the backers withdrew, disappointed with the team's slow progress and early results, it fell to one of the partners in the trust, Alfred Owen of the Rubery Owen group of companies, which primarily manufactured car parts, to take over the team in its entirety. Between 1954 and 1970 the team entered its works F1 cars under the official name of the Owen Racing Organisation. Berthon and Mays continued to run the team on Rubery Owen's behalf into the 1960s, before it was handed over to Louis Stanley, the husband of Sir Alfred's sister Jean Owen.

BRM V16

A factory was set up in Spalding Road, Bourne, Lincolnshire, behind Eastgate House, Mays's family home, in a building called ''The Maltings''. (At this stage it was in the former ERA works, vacated in 1939 and used in 1944 as a billet for the Parachute Regiment as it regrouped before going to Arnhem.) Several people involved with ERA returned to the firm to work for BRM, including Harry Mundy and Eric Richter. The team also had access to a test facility at Folkingham aerodrome.

The first post-war rules for the top level of motor racing allowed 1.5 litre supercharged or 4.5 litre normally-aspirated engines. BRM's first engine design was an extremely ambitious 1.5 litre supercharged V16. Rolls-Royce was contracted to produce centrifugal superchargers, rather than the more commonly used Roots type. Since his experience on supercharging ERA engines, Berthon had been doing war-time work on aero-engines at Rolls-Royce, Derby. The design concept of the V16 had not been used extensively on automobiles before so that design problems were many and the engine did not fire for the first time until June 1949. It proved to be outstandingly powerful but its output was produced over a very limited range of engine speed, the power coming on suddenly if throttle was applied carelessly, resulting in wheelspin as the narrow tyres proved unable to transfer the power to the road. This made the car very touchy to drive. Engineer Tony Rudd was seconded to BRM from Rolls-Royce to develop the supercharging system and remained involved with BRM for nearly 20 years.

The Type 15, which was the designation for the V16 car, won the first two races it actually started, the Formula Libre and Formula One events at Goodwood in September 1950, driven by Reg Parnell. However, it was never to be so successful again. The engine proved unreliable and difficult to develop, and the team were not up to the task of improving the situation. A string of failures caused much embarrassment, and the problems were still unsolved when the CSI announced in 1952 that for 1954, a new engine formula of 2.5 litres unsupercharged or 750 cc supercharged would take effect.

Meanwhile, the organisers of all the Grands Prix counting for the World Championship elected to run their races for Formula Two for the next two years, as Alfa Romeo had pulled out of racing and BRM were unable to present raceworthy cars - leaving no credible opposition to Ferrari other than ancient Lago-Talbots and the odd O.S.C.A.. The V16s continued to race in minor Formula One races and in British Formula Libre events until the mid fifties, battles with Tony Vandervell's Thin Wall Special Ferrari 375 being a particular highlight of the British scene.

Crisis

The Type 25 was the next car. It used a very oversquare (4.05 x 2.95 in, 102.87 x 74.93 mm) 2.5 L atmospheric four-cylinder engine designed by Stuart Tresilian and (as became a typical theme with BRM) it arrived late and took a lot of development; it was in fact so late that the Owen Organisation started the 2.5 L formula with a Maserati 250F. The P25 was initially unsuccessful, not winning a race until a long awaited victory at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1959. Colin Chapman helped to improve the car in 1956. Stirling Moss believed that the BRM engine was superior to the Coventry-Climax unit used in his Cooper, and a P25 was briefly run in 1959 by the British Racing Partnership, for Moss (and also Hans Herrmann), and Rob Walker also backed the construction of a Cooper-BRM to gain access to the engine.

The P25 was becoming highly competitive just as the rear engined Cooper started to become dominant; the P48 was a quick reaction to this, using major components from the P25 but in rear-engined format. The P48 was revised for the 1.5 L rules in 1961, but once again BRM's own engine was not ready and the cars had to run with a Coventry-Climax four cylinder unit in adapted P48 chassis, achieving very little results.

The firm moved to a purpose-built workshop on an adjoining site in spring 1960 but when the 1.5 litre atmospheric Formula One regulation was introduced in 1961, Alfred Owen was threatening to pull the plug unless race victories were achieved very soon.

Champions

By the end of the season BRM had managed to build an engine designed by Peter Berthon and Aubrey Woods (BRM P56 V8) (2.6975 x 2.0 in, 68.5 x 50.8 mm) which was on a par with the Dino V6 used by Ferrari and the Coventry Climax V8 used by other British teams. However, the real change was the promotion of an exceptional engineer who had been with the team since 1950 (originally on secondment from Rolls-Royce to look after the supercharging on the V16); Tony Rudd was elevated by Owen to the position of chief development engineer. Rudd was the first professional engineer to exercise full technical control over the team, and basic engineering and reliability problems which had plagued the team for years began to vanish. He was given greater responsibility in 1960 after two of the drivers, Graham Hill and Dan Gurney, went on strike and told Alfred Owen they would not drive again, and in early 1962 full executive authority was given to Tony Rudd. Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon were sidelined. The team had designed their first mid-engined car for 1960, matching the other teams, and won the World Drivers' Championship with Graham Hill as driver, in . (During 1962, BRM also ran Lucas electronic ignition.) During 1965, at 11,000 rpm was the rated power. However at the high-speed 1965 Italian GP (Monza) an uprated version was raced with at 11,750 rpm for short bursts. A planned 4 valve per cylinder version in cooperation with Weslake Engineering never materialized.

As part of Owen's attempt to make BRM pay its way, the V8 engine was sold to privateers and appeared in a number of other chassis during the 1.5 L formula, particularly in private Lotus chassis and in smaller marques such as BRP.

A number of privateers acquired 1961-2 BRMs during this period, including Maurice Trintignant and Scuderia Centro Sud; these cars continued to race on for many years.

Monocoque V8 cars were soon developed and these ran on through the 1.5 litre formula and performed useful service in the early races of the subsequent 3.0 litre formula. In 1965 Jackie Stewart was signed to partner Hill; he took his first Grand Prix win at Monza in his debut season, and won the first World Championship race of the new three-litre formula with a car fitted with a ''Tasman'' 2.0 litre V8; once again BRM were not ready for the start of a new formula and the old cars continued to be used, even on occasion when the H16 was ready.

BRM H16

For , the engine regulations changed to permit 3.0 litre atmospheric (or 1.5 litre supercharged) engines. BRM refused Peter Berthon's and Aubrey Woods's proposal to build a V12, and instead built a strange engine, designed by Tony Rudd and Geoff Johnson, the H16 (BRM Type 75), which essentially used two flat-8 engines (derived from their 1.5 L V8) one above the other, with the crankshafts geared together.

BRM found the H16 (2.75 x 1.925 in, 69.85 x 48.895 mm) attractive because it was initially planned to share design elements and components with the successful 1.5 litre V8. While the engine was powerful, it was also heavy and unreliable - Rudd claims that his drawings were not followed accurately and many of the castings were much thicker and heavier than he had specified. (When Lotus took delivery of their first H16 it took six men to carry it from the van to the workshop). At that time, BRM earned the nickname of "British Racing Misery". BRM, Lotus, and various privateers had been using enlarged versions of the BRM 1.5 V8 of up to 2.1 litres in 1966, as competitive 3.0 engines were in short supply in this first year of the new regulations. Lotus also took up the H16 as an interim measure until the Cosworth DFV was ready, building the Lotus 43 to house it, and Jim Clark managed to win the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen with this combination. It was the only victory for this engine in a World Championship race. Lotus built the similar Lotus 42 designed for Indianapolis with a 4.2 litre version of the H16 (2.9375 x 2.36 in, 74.61 x 59.94 mm) but this was never raceworthy; the cars were raced with Ford V8s instead.

The H16 engine was redesigned with a narrow angle 4 valve head and magnesium main castings to reduce weight and increase power, but never raced in a car (it was intended for the 1967 BRM P115) as BRM decided to use the V12 unit which was being sold to other F1 and sports car teams with encouraging results.

BRM V12

The H16 was replaced by a V12 (2.9375 x 2.25 in, 74.61 x 57.15 mm) designed by Geoff Johnson. It had been intended for sports car use, but was first used in F1 by the McLaren M5A. Back at the works, the early V12 years were lean ones. In the 2-valve layout gave about at 9,000 rpm. In 1968 this had increased to at 9,750 rpm. Geoff Johnson updated the design by adding a 4-valve head, based on the H16 485 bhp 4-valve layout; this improved the V12's power output to at 10,500 rpm and eventually to a claimed during 1969. In 1973 Louis Stanley claimed at 11,750 rpm. The first V12 chassis (P133) was designed independently by Len Terry; the subsequent P139 was designed and built in-house. John Surtees joined as the team's lead driver, with the semi-works Parnell team for driver development (notably Piers Courage and Chris Irwin). Surtees' time at BRM was not happy, and despite the fact that a ground effect "wing car" was designed, this was never constructed and the team's performances were lacklustre. Surtees left after a single unhappy season (1969), along with Tony Rudd who went to Lotus (initially on the road-car side), and Geoff Johnson who departed for Austin Morris.

The team regrouped with new drivers and Tony Southgate as designer, and gained its first V12 victory for Pedro Rodríguez at the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix in a P153, with further victories for Jo Siffert and Peter Gethin in 1971 in the P160. The team had reached one of its intermittent peaks of success. Sadly both Siffert and Rodriguez were killed before the 1972 season and the team had to regroup completely again. Their last victory was when Jean-Pierre Beltoise drove a stunning race to win the rain-affected 1972 Monaco Grand Prix with the P160. The campaign was generally chaotic: having acquired major sponsorship, Louis Stanley originally planned to field up to six cars (three for established drivers, three for paying journeymen and young drivers) of varying designs including P153s, P160s and P180s and actually ran up to five for a mix of paying and paid drivers until it became obvious that it was completely overstretched—the team's sponsors insisted that the team should cut back to a more reasonable level and only three cars were run in 1973 for Beltoise, Lauda and Regazzoni.

Decline and Fall

The last notable performance was Beltoise's second position in the 1974 South African Grand Prix with the Mike Pilbeam-designed P201, a car with a pyramidal monocoque, very different from the curvy "coke-bottle" Southgate cars. The Owen Organisation ended its support of the team and it was run on a lower-key basis by Louis Stanley and some of the Bourne personnel as Stanley-BRM until 1977. Old P201s were initially used, with the team hoping for revival with the bulky and vaguely Ferrari-like P207 - which failed entirely.

Cereal millionaire and amateur racer John Jordan purchased some of the team's assets when the team finally folded, and backed the building of a pair of P230 cars by CTG, with the aim of competing in the national-level Aurora AFX Formula One Championship. Teddy Pilette raced a P207 during 1978 with a modest success, finishing fourth at Oulton Park and fifth at Brands Hatch. One chassis also apparently raced in the revived Can-Am series.

Miscellany

Side Projects

The team became involved with Rover's gas-turbine project, with the Rover-BRM gas turbine car running at Le Mans in 1963 and 1965 (it was damaged in testing and missed the 1964 race). BRM were also involved with Donald Campbell's gas-turbine Bluebird project. In later years they also built an unsuccessful Can-Am car, and dabbled with larger versions of the H16 engine for the Indianapolis 500. As a part of the Owen Organisation, BRM also worked on tuned road-car engines for Ford, Chrysler and others. The BRM-tuned version of the 1558 cc Lotus/Ford twin-cam engine was particularly popular. This improved version of the Lotus-Ford engine was used by Tony Rudd when he left BRM for Lotus to form the basis of the Lotus produced "Sprint" version of the engine used in the Elan Sprint, Elan Plus2S-130, Europa JPS and Caterham Seven.

BRM were contracted by Chrysler (UK) Competition Department to develop a 16-valve cylinder head for the Hillman Avenger engine. It proved unreliable, underpowered, and unable compete with the Ford rally team's proven Cosworth BDA-powered RS1600 Escorts.

BRM engine sales

The Owen Organisation expected BRM to turn a profit through sales of racing engines; the four-cylinder appeared briefly in a Cooper-BRM special for Stirling Moss but found no other customers. The V8 powered many 1.5 litre cars, including various private Lotuses and Brabhams as well as the BRP works team. Enlarged Tasman Series V8s of between 1.9 and 2.1 L were popular in 1966 as a stopgap before full three litre engines were widely available. These units were also sold to Matra to power its early sports-prototypes.

A one-litre Formula Two engine was also made available, based on half of the F1 V8. This was not successful, in a formula dominated by Cosworth-Ford and eventually Honda engines.

Team Lotus used the ill-fated H16 engine, scoring its only win.

V12s were sold to other constructors of which the most notable were Cooper, John Wyer and McLaren. Matra entered into a contract with BRM to collaborate in the design of their own V12 engine, but when this became public knowledge the French constructor was forced to drop the involvement with BRM and restart development with a French partner, as its government funding was threatened, but there were still close resemblances between the finished Matra engine and the BRM.

Sponsorship and colours

The first BRMs were a pale duck-egg green (any shade of green represented Britain's racing colours), but this was later replaced for aesthetic reasons by a very dark metallic shade of grey-green. During the team's Owen-owned years the cars bore simple "Owen Racing Organisation" signage. The BRP-entered BRM for Moss and Herrmann was a non-metallic duck-egg green. Centro-Sud ran their cars in Italian red; Trintignant's car was in French blue.

At one point in the 1960s Alfred Owen's brother Ernest wanted the team to paint their cars orange with black trim, orange being the Owen Organisation's corporate colour, used for a band around the nose of the cars and for the mechanics' overalls; Rudd (who didn't like the idea of orange BRMs) pointed out that orange was the Dutch racing colour, when such things were still honoured; through most of the 1960s the cars ran with Owen orange bands round the nose.

The team acquired significant commercial sponsorship from Yardley for the season, running in white with black, gold and ochre stripes in a stylised "Y" wrapping around the car's bodywork, losing this deal to McLaren for 1972 and replacing it by Marlboro's familiar white and red (a flat shade, not dayglo) colours. Ironically this deal was also lost to McLaren for 1974, to be replaced briefly by Motul in a pale green and silver colour scheme. As Stanley-BRM the cars initially ran in red, white and blue with no major sponsorship; for the team's swansong it was sponsored by Rotary Watches and ran in pale blue and white. The Jordan-BRM P230 was black and gold.

Later use of BRM name

BRM raced again as part of a project by John Mangoletsi for a Group C sports car known as the P351 with the backing of the Owen family to use the BRM name. Unfortunately the car was short lived and unsuccessful. In 1997 Keith Wiggins and Pacific Racing would resurrect the car as the BRM P301, using the BRM name only because it was technically a BRM built chassis but had no other connection to British Racing Motors. Heavily modified into an open cockpit sportscar, the car was equally unsuccessful.

A special edition Rover 200 was produced to commemorate the Rover-BRM gas-turbine car; this was finished in Brooklands Green (however not the very dark metallic gunmetal BRM shade) with an orange lower, front grill and silver details.

In October 2008, a press release announced that Bee Automobiles Ltd 'BRM Bee Four ERV' will compete in the British Speed Hill Climb championships. The 'BRM Bee Four ERV', code named the 'Watt 4', is an all electric AWD (all wheel drive) vehicle capable of producing 700 hp or 520 kW. The ERV uses motor technology developed at Oxford University. The car is theoretically capable of reaching speeds of up to 250 mph. Participants in the project include Rubery Owen, Oxford University, Oxford Brookes and MIRA Ltd - Motor Industry Research Association. Paul Owen, Grandson of Sir Alfred and Managing Director of Rubery Owen's Environmental Technology Subsidiary Rozone Limited, commented: "Rubery Owen is very pleased to see the BRM name once again being used to drive forward an innovative development to take motorsport to new levels". As of 2011, the car has yet to leave the drawing board.

Formula One World Championship results

Grand Prix winners

The BRM team won seventeen Formula One Grands Prix as follows:

	Dutch Grand Prix
	Dutch Grand Prix	Zandvoort	Graham Hill		1.5L V8
	German Grand Prix	Nürburgring	Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
	Italian Grand Prix		Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
	South African Grand Prix		Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
	Monaco Grand Prix		Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
	United States Grand Prix		Graham Hill	P57	1.5L V8
	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Graham Hill		1.5L V8
	United States Grand Prix	Watkins Glen	Graham Hill	P261	1.5L V8
	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Graham Hill	P261	1.5L V8
	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	Jackie Stewart	P261	1.5L V8
	United States Grand Prix	Watkins Glen	Graham Hill	P261	1.5L V8
	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Jackie Stewart	P261	1.9L V8
	Belgian Grand Prix
	Austrian Grand Prix	Österreichring	Jo Siffert		3.0L V12
	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	Peter Gethin	P160	3.0L V12
	Monaco Grand Prix	Monaco	Jean-Pierre Beltoise		3.0L V12

Exhibition

There is a small exhibition about Raymond Mays, including his interest in BRM, together with the trophies won by BRM while it was owned by the Owen Organisation, at Bourne Civic Society's Heritage Centre.

Computer simulation

A driveable, detailed virtual recreation of the BRM H16-powered P83/P115 and the BRM P261 was made available in the pc-based F1-simulation Grand Prix Legends.

External links

Facts

The story

Personnel

BRM People.

BRM personnel.

BRM's backers

The Owen Organisation trophies.

Warwick University Archive - Owen Organisation documents.

Where it happened

Places to see.

Notes

Bibliography

BRM, Raymond Mays and Peter Roberts

BRM: The Saga of British Racing Motors, Doug Nye with Tony Rudd, MRP - Volumes 1, 2 and 3 have appeared, covering the front-engined cars, spaceframe rear engined cars and monocoque V8 cars respectively; Volume 4 will cover the H16, V12s and Can-Ams.

It Was Fun, Tony Rudd, MRP.

BRM V16, How Britain's auto makers built a Grand Prix car to beat the world, By Karl Ludvigsen, Published by Veloce

The V12 Engine, Karl Ludvigsen, Haynes 2005.

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Category:Formula One constructors Category:Formula One entrants Category:British auto racing teams Category:British racecar constructors Category:Companies based in Lincolnshire

bg:Бритиш Рейсинг Мотърс ca:British Racing Motors de:British Racing Motors es:British Racing Motors fr:British Racing Motors gl:British Racing Motors id:British Racing Motors it:British Racing Motors lv:British Racing Motors lt:British Racing Motors hu:British Racing Motors nl:British Racing Motors ja:ブリティッシュ・レーシング・モータース pl:British Racing Motors pt:British Racing Motors ro:British Racing Motors ru:BRM (команда Формулы-1) sl:British Racing Motors fi:British Racing Motors sv:BRM

Karl Ludvigsen (born 24 April 1934, Kalamazoo, Michigan). Cum Laude graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and attended both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying engineering, and Pratt Institute where he matriculated in industrial design. In 1958-59 he served in the US Army Signal Corps in West Germany.

Ludvigsen is best known for his work over 50 years as a journalist, author and historian. Ludvigsen began his automotive writing and editing for MIT's ''Tech Engineering News'' in 1953. He has served as technical editor of both ''Auto Age'' and ''Sports Cars Illustrated'', east coast editor of ''Motor Trend'' and editor of ''Car and Driver''. Currently he writes for ''Automobile Quarterly'', ''The Automobile'' and ''Hemmings Sports & Exotic Cars'', among others, plus various one-make periodicals and leading website publications ''Winding Road'' and ''Just-Auto.com''.

As an author, co-author or editor Ludvigsen has some four dozen books to his credit. Four Ludvigsen books concern the Chevrolet Corvette, one of them that was credited with sparking the Corvette hobby. He has written three times about Mercedes-Benz, twice about its racing cars. His books on the latter subject have won the Montagu Trophy (once) and the Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot Award (twice), both recognizing outstanding automotive historical writing. In 2001 he again received the Cugnot award from the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH) for his book about the early years of the Volkswagen, ''Battle for the Beetle''. In 2002 he was named a Friend of Automotive History by the SAH, the Society's highest award.

Since 1997 Ludvigsen has been drawing on the photographic resources of the Ludvigsen Library to write and illustrate books on the great racing drivers. His first title in this series was ''Stirling Moss—Racing with the Maestro''. He followed this with ''Jackie Stewart—Triple-Crowned King of Speed'' and ''Juan Manuel Fangio—Motor Racing's Grand Master''. Fourth in this series for Haynes Publishing was ''Dan Gurney—The Ultimate Racer'' and fifth was ''Alberto Ascari—Ferrari's First Double Champion''. Sixth and seventh in the series are ''Bruce McLaren—Life and Legend of Excellence'' and ''Emerson Fittipaldi—Heart of a Racer''.

Also in the field of motor sports Karl Ludvigsen has written about the cars of the Can-Am series, the AAR Eagle racing cars, the Ford GT40s and ''Prime Movers'', the story of Britain's Ilmor Engineering. His introduction to ''At Speed'', a book of Jesse Alexander's racing photography, won the Ken W. Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism. Other motor-sports titles include ''Classic Grand Prix Cars'', a history of the front-engined G.P. car, and ''Classic Racing Engines'', Ludvigsen's personal selection of 50 notable power units.

Karl Ludvigsen is the author of definitive histories of Porsche and Opel. His Porsche history, ''Excellence was Expected'', is considered to be a model of the researching and writing of the history of an auto company. The updated edition was published in three volumes by Bentley Publishers in 2003. In 1997 Ludvigsen researched and wrote the catalogue for a special exhibition of Ferrari technological innovations on the occasion of the company's 50th anniversary and contributed a major section to the company's official 50-year history. He updated and expanded this work for Ferrari's 60th anniversary in 2007. He is the author of a series of monographs on great Maserati cars.

In co-operation with publisher Iconografix, Ludvigsen has established a series of photographic books now numbering some nineteen titles, including books on Indy racing cars from the Speedway's first contest in 1911 through the 1970s, the Indy Novis, Chevrolet's Corvair and Corvette, the Mercedes-Benz 300SLs of 1952 and 1954–64, the Porsche Spyders and Porsche 917, the Ferrari Factory, Can-Am racing cars, the sports-racers of Briggs Cunningham and Jim Hall's Chaparral cars. More titles are in preparation.

Ludvigsen has collected his library of the same name throughout his career and it now holds extensive original negatives and transparencies from the 1950s forward with special strengths in motor sports, American cars and sports cars. As well it holds original photos and glass negatives from the dawn of the automotive era.

On motor-industry topics Karl Ludvigsen has written books about high-performance engines, the Wankel rotary engine and the histories of American auto makers. He was editor of ''The Future of the Automobile'', the report of the 1981-84 study of the world auto industry by MIT. This was named one of the best business books of the year by Business Week. In the 1980s he established Euromotor Reports Limited, for which he wrote and edited numerous research studies.

In 1996 publishers in Britain and the United States launched Karl Ludvigsen's book on motor-industry management, ''Creating the Customer-Driven Car Company''. It advises industry personnel on customer-pleasing best practice researched during 15 years of in charge of a London-based motor-industry management consultancy, which he founded in 1983. Ludvigsen and his team worked for most of the world's leading motor manufacturers in strategic planning, brand reinforcement, distribution, company structure and organization, mergers and acquisitions, and on design and engineering issues.

To his work as a consultant Karl Ludvigsen brought his personal motor-industry experience. As a designer at General Motors in 1956, Ludvigsen planned experimental front-drive prototypes. He also worked on the design and development of heavy-duty truck transmissions in the engineering and experimental departments of the Fuller Manufacturing Company, a subsidiary of the Eaton Corporation. As a public-affairs official with General Motors Overseas Operations in the 1960s, Ludvigsen was responsible for all the company's product information outside the USA. He also supervised its financial advertising abroad. Prior to that he assisted the General Motors technical staffs in press relations, with special emphasis on the Styling Staff.

When Ludvigsen was president of Formula 1 Enterprises, an importer and distributor of motor vehicle equipment, several of his friends were injured in motor racing accidents. This led him and his company to become active in racing safety at the end of the 1960s. Ludvigsen helped invent the practical modern Halon-gas fire extinguishing system for racing vehicles and founded the ''Motor Racing Safety Society'' to bring together professionals working in this field.

At the end of the 1970s Ludvigsen joined Fiat Motors of North America as vice president of corporate affairs, with responsibilities including legal affairs and relations with customers, dealers, governments and the press. He took part in the product development of Fiat and Lancia cars both in the USA and Turin. His team obtained unprecedented public awareness for Fiat, Lancia, and Ferrari products in the United States and successfully launched the Fiat Strada range.

In 1980 Ludvigsen joined Ford of Europe as a vice president. One of his briefs for Ford included government affairs. This included European governmental assessments and lobbying activities, as well as the preparation and presentation of Ford's External Factors Study, a ten-year rolling forecast of the external environment within which Ford would operate in Europe.

Another Ford of Europe responsibility for Ludvigsen was Ford's European motor sports activity. This encompassed the design, engineering, tooling, production, marketing, distribution and sale throughout Europe of special automobiles, light trucks and parts. He was in charge of the design and launching of the RS1600i Escort, which was named ''Motor Sports Car of the Year'' in France and which led Ford's RS Products operation to record profitability. In addition, Ludvigsen played a key role in the creation of the AC-Ghia and Barchetta prototype sports cars.

From 1980 through 1984 Ludvigsen was a member of the Policy Forum of the MIT ''Future of the Automobile Programme'', the most comprehensive trilateral study of the motor industry ever undertaken. He also chaired the ''Auto & Transport Design Forum'', an international conference on design and transport infrastructures held in Lugano, Switzerland and Stuttgart, Germany. His tutorial responsibilities have included the University of Syracuse, The Royal College of Art and the Bavarian Academy of Advertising.

Ludvigsen has been a Member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) since 1960 and has been active on both Standards and Activities Committees of the SAE. He is currently a member of the Historical Committee. He is a founder member of the International Motor Press Association and a member of the Society of Automotive Historians, the Society of Authors, the Society For the History of Technology and the Guild of Motoring Writers. Ludvigsen is an honorary member of the Vintage Sports Car Club of America and the Corvair Society of America. He is also a member of the council of Historic Automobile Group

Karl Ludvigsen has been resident in England since 1980 and lives in Suffolk with his wife Annette.

Books

''Stirling Moss—Racing with the Maestro''

''Jackie Stewart—Triple-Crowned King of Speed''

''Juan Manuel Fangio—Motor Racing's Grand Master''

''Dan Gurney—The Ultimate Racer''

''Alberto Ascari—Ferrari's First Double Champion''

''Bruce McLaren—Life and Legend of Excellence''

''Emerson Fittipaldi—Heart of a Racer''

''Classic Grand Prix Cars''

''Creating the Customer-Driven Car Company''

References

Category:American journalists Category:Motoring journalists Category:Motoring writers Category:People from Kalamazoo, Michigan Category:1934 births Category:Living people